


Here There Be Dragons

by imaginary_golux



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pernese Dragons, Canon-Typical Violence, Enthusiastic Consent, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Force-Sensitive Everyone, Force-Sensitive Finn, M/M, Pern-typical consent issues, Redemption, brief animal harm, very brief dragon-induced dubcon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-07-18 14:57:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 21,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7319803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a duel to the death between Kylo Ren and Rey, held on a strange uninhabited world, is interrupted by the hatching of some nearby eggs, the lives of everyone present - and the course of the war - are changed forever.</p><p>Or: dragons for everyone!</p><p>Inspired in part by a kinkmeme prompt, and betaed by my wonderful Best Beloved, Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Here There Be Dragons

Finn is, in a word, _dubious_ about meeting Kylo Ren and his two seconds on a backwater and entirely unpopulated world so that Rey can finish beating the bantha crap out of him (that’s not what the formal challenge said, but it’s what’s going to _happen_ , so Finn is comfortable thinking of it like that), but it’s not up to Finn. It’s up to Rey, and Rey is bright-eyed and eager to turn Kylo Ren into collops. Finn can’t really blame her, but he _was_ trained as a tactician and strategist, and his tactical mind is screaming things like ‘ambush’ and ‘not negotiating in good faith’ and ‘bad, bad idea,’ all of which he suspects are accurate assessments of the upcoming single combat. But it’s up to Rey, and Rey accepted the challenge almost as soon as it was issued, and so here Rey and Finn and Poe are, on their way to a backwater planet (and what sort of name is ‘Pern’ anyhow?) to act as Rey’s seconds while she hopefully turns Kylo Ren into bantha fodder.

Fun times.

The chosen battleground is on a clearing near a large body of water, and Finn scouts it on foot once they’ve landed on the northern side of the clearing, noting the slope of the land and the encroaching trees and the occasional holes in the grass caused by small burrowing animals of some sort; there’s nothing really dangerous around, nothing even _strange_ except for the clutch of eggs he finds in the sand down by the water, just above the tideline, where the sun will hit them all day: six eggs, five half his own size, one even larger and bright gold. But they’re not immediately harmful, so he marks off the area around them with bright tape so the battle won’t go near them - he and Kylo Ren’s seconds have both been given the right to do that - and goes back to the ship to tell Rey what he’s found. _She’s_ not allowed to leave the ship until it’s time to do battle. She’s meditating, trying to map the ground outside with her mind since she can’t walk it, and Finn lets her slide gently into his mind, look through his memories of the battleground until she knows it as intimately as he does.

When Kylo Ren’s ship arrives - another tiny transport like their own, just large enough for three people, and not piloted anything _like_ as well as Poe flew theirs - it’s Finn who goes out to meet the representative of their enemies, and he’s startled and dismayed to see Captain Phasma, armor shining in the sun, descending the ship’s ramp to meet him. But he greets her formally, and she greets him just as politely, as though they are any two mortal enemies meeting on a green field under an alien sky. Then Phasma walks slowly around the field, just as Finn had, pauses briefly at the marked tape, moves on until she’s standing with Finn again in the center of the field.

“Is the field acceptable to your party?” Phasma asks politely.

“It is,” Finn confirms, “with the exception of the marked area. Is the field acceptable to your party?”

Phasma nods. “It is, with the exception noted. The engagement will be until the death of one party, or the mutual agreement of both parties to cease hostilities.”

To the death, then, because Rey and Kylo Ren are hardly going to _agree_ to cease hostilities. But Finn nods. “Those terms are acceptable to my party. The engagement will commence when both parties have entered the field and two seconds have ordered the attack.”

“The terms are acceptable,” Phasma agrees. “Summon your party.”

Finn nods and turns back to the ship. Poe meets him at the top of the ramp, looking worried as hell.

“Stay on the ramp,” Finn murmurs to him. “Be ready to take off, _fast_ , if we need to, but be visible. No need to make them go off if they’re not going to.”

Poe claps him on the shoulder. “Got it,” he agrees.

Rey steps up beside Poe, kisses Poe gently on the cheek and tugs Finn down until she can kiss his forehead. “I’ve got this,” she tells them quietly. “Don’t worry so much. And I love you both, so no doing something stupid and heroic and getting yourselves killed, okay?”

“Like going up against a Sith Lord by yourself?” Poe asks, his usual banter somewhat less snappy than usual.

“Exactly like that,” Rey agrees serenely, and walks down the ramp onto the field. Across the grass, Kylo Ren mirrors her, step for step, and Finn is mildly and bitterly amused to see Phasma behind Kylo Ren as Finn is behind Rey, General Hux poised on the enemy ship’s ramp as Poe is poised on theirs. Like some horrid mirror. Dark Side and Light Side, meeting here to do battle. Finn thinks he may be sick.

But instead, he and Phasma circle around until they’re facing each other, the Force-users between them, and Finn meets Phasma’s gaze as the Force-users draw their lightsabers, thumb them into thrumming life. Green and red, glowing even in the bright sunlight, beautiful and terrible.

Phasma raises a gauntleted hand; Finn mirrors her; and together they count to three, drop their hands, and shout, “Begin!”

And then they both retreat as fast as they can out of the way, because Rey and Kylo Ren go for each other instantly, uncoiling into twin avatars of rage and glory.

Finn watches from the beach with his heart in his throat. He wants, desperately, to turn away, to not see as the woman he thinks he might love battles for her life - and for the galaxy - while he stands helplessly to one side; but to look away would be a sort of betrayal, so he keeps his eyes fixed on the whirling figures, black robes and brown like a kaleidoscope, green lightsaber and red throwing sparks every time they meet. First blood goes to Rey, a long cut down Kylo Ren’s leg; second blood goes to Kylo Ren, a gash on Rey’s arm.

And there’s a loud _crack_ from behind Finn.

Finn just about levitates, he whirls around so fast, and to his absolute shock he sees the eggs in their carefully marked-off nest _rocking_ , sees that the gold one has a long crack all down its shell that _was not there before_. Behind him, the combat has paused, and after a long moment, as the eggs rock and the crack spreads, Rey says, “I propose we pause this battle until we see what the kriff is going on.”

“I agree to a delay in hostilities,” Kylo Ren says, surprising Finn immensely, and then the two Force-users are crowding up next to Finn, staring in fascination at the eggs; moments later, they are all joined by Poe and Phasma and Hux, each radiating curiosity.

The golden egg shakes all over, and then the crack widens again and there’s a brief, breathless moment, and then the egg _next_ to it shatters into three pieces, revealing a…

Finn blinks at it. It’s blue, and it has wings and sort of pebbley hide, and honestly the only word he can think of to describe it is _dragon_. Are dragons a thing? What the kriffing hell?

The blue dragon (Finn is going to keep calling it a dragon until he finds out the real name) looks around, making a high keening noise of hunger and pleading, and sees the humans. It comes stumbling out of its nest towards them, clumsy and half-desperate, tripping over its wings, and while it’s only a baby it _is_ very nearly Finn’s size, and he’s prepared to defend itself but it faceplants at Kylo Ren’s feet and then looks up and -

Kylo Ren goes to his knees, tearing off his helmet and flinging it away, and gathers the creature up in his arms with a raw sound of desperate joy.

Finn honestly can’t help staring, but at least everyone _else_ is staring too. Kylo Ren cuddling _anything_ is too strange for words.

Another egg cracks, and Finn jumps again, turns to look; it’s the gold egg this time, the one he’d thought would hatch first, and the dragon tumbling out of it is as golden as the egg, and comes bumbling over the sand straight for Rey as though it’s iron and Rey’s a magnet. And Rey goes to her knees just like Kylo Ren did, starts running her hands over the creature as though it’s the most precious thing in the world.

Finn glances over at Poe, who’s looking just as baffled as Finn is feeling, and then at Hux and Phasma. Phasma is, as usual, unreadable behind her helmet, but Hux has an expression of raw disbelief on his face, which is mildly reassuring. At least this probably isn’t a First Order plot.

And then the third and fourth eggs crack open in swift succession, and a pair of bronze dragons come stumbling towards them over the sand, and Finn looks down into the whirling blue and purple eyes of the first one and staggers as though he’s been struck, and a voice in his mind that’s full of joy and love and awe says, _My name is Caith_.

Finn drops to the sand and puts his arms around Caith’s neck and clings like he’s just found the other half of his soul, and for a little while he forgets everything else going on around him, can’t think of anything but the perfect beautiful creature which is now his, his to care for and love and be loved by and adore.

When he looks up again, it is to see, to his only mild surprise, that everyone else is _also_ on his or her knees in the sand, a dragon butting adoringly against them. Phasma’s helmet has gone to join Kylo Ren’s, and her usually blank face is full of joy and wonder as she cradles the other bronze dragon in her arms; Hux is stroking a brown dragon’s hide and tidying its wings with nearly obsessive care; and Poe has a green dragon, only two-thirds the size of the others, burrowing against him as he admires it volubly. Trust Poe to keep command of his voice even when joy has rendered everyone else speechless.

Caith’s eyes are still whirling, but the blue and purple are turning steadily red, and Finn has a moment to worry before Caith says, plaintively, _Hungry!_

“Shit,” says Finn involuntarily. “What do you eat?”

 _Meat_ , says Caith, sounding like a starving child.

“Meat,” says Finn. “Uh - shit -”

“There are animals in the forest,” Kylo Ren says, making Finn jump. “We can call them, Rey and I.”

“Yes,” says Rey instantly. “Finn, you’ve got a blaster - I’m trying for larger animals -”

Bare moments later, something like a herd of very large deer go stampeding through the field, and Finn and Phasma between them shoot down eight of them. The baby dragons keen at the scent of blood, yearning towards the carcasses, and Finn picks Caith up in his arms so the little dragon won’t trip over his own wings and stands and carries his dragon - _his_ \- over to the meat. Behind him, the other five do the same, Rey staggering a little under the weight of her gold but managing quite well.

As the dragons feast, each taking its own deer - and bidding fair to finish them, too, to Finn’s astonishment - the humans draw back a few steps and stand looking at each other in confusion. It’s Poe who finally breaks the silence.

“So my green is Saeth, she tells me,” he says amiably. “Not that she said much else, other than that she was hungry.”

“Amaranth,” Rey says briefly, her eyes straying to her blood-smeared golden dragon.

“Caith,” Finn says. “Apparently they like ‘th’ noises.”

Phasma actually barks a laugh. “Samarth,” she says, sounding - to Finn’s shock - _fond_.

“Berith,” Hux says. He’s not even looking at anyone else, all his attention apparently on the dragon making a very spirited attempt to eat a deer-thing larger than it is.

“Mine is Zereth,” Kylo Ren says. “And you shall not take him from me.”

“Wasn’t going to try,” Rey says. “That would be…”

“Wrong,” says Poe, grimacing. “Deeply wrong.”

“But,” says Rey, “I don’t think we can keep fighting just now. I don’t...Amaranth doesn’t think that would be good.”

Kylo Ren shakes his head. “No. No, I - Zereth agrees with Amaranth. We can’t fight.”

“Truce, then,” Rey sighs. “Damn. I was hoping we could settle this whole mess _today_.”

There’s a pause. And then Hux says, sounding very weary, “I suspect we have, actually.” He goes to his knees again next to Berith, puts a hand on the brown dragon’s back between its wings. “If we return to the First Order with them, Supreme Leader Snoke will be...intrigued.”

“No,” says Phasma, voice flat and hard as durasteel. “He may not have Samarth.”

“Nor Berith,” Hux says calmly. “Nor, I suspect, Zereth. And as we cannot refuse a direct order from Supreme Leader Snoke and remain alive, thus we cannot return to the First Order.” He looks up at Finn, who is feeling more than a little gobsmacked. “I surrender to the Resistance,” Hux says coolly. “On the condition that I am not separated from my dragon.”

“I accept your surrender, with its condition, in the Resistance’s name,” Finn says, feeling rather as though he has fallen into a _very_ strange dream.

“I, too, surrender,” says Phasma.

Kylo Ren looks at Zereth for a long moment, and the dragon lifts its head from its grisly meal and looks back at its...person...with wide, purple-red eyes. “And so do I,” Kylo Ren says finally.

Poe says, “Explaining this one is going to be _fun_.”

Caith looks up from his deer-thing at Finn and sways, suddenly exhausted by...life, Finn supposes. Baby things eat and sleep a lot, so far as he knows. He steps over and scoops Caith up as the little bronze dragon slumps, gathers his dragon to his chest and looks over at the others.

“Let’s get them home,” he says. “We can sort everything out later - for now, let’s just go home.”


	2. Never Tickle A Sleeping Dragon (They're Too Cute To Wake)

General Leia stares at them as they come down the ramps of their little ships, six people carrying six sleeping dragons nearly as large as they are. Then she shakes herself, like she’s shaking off a dream, and turns to look warily up into Kylo Ren’s face.

“Mother,” says Kylo Ren, very softly. Finn is only a few meters away, and he can barely hear it. “I...I kind of kriffed everything up.”

“Yeah,” General Leia says, equally quietly. Finn’s honestly not sure he should be watching this; it’s uncomfortably intimate. But he does need to know what the disposition of the three surrendered enemy leaders that he’s just brought back with him is going to be, so he stands there with Caith in his arms and tries not to look like he’s gawking. “You kind of did, Ben. Are you here to kill me?”

Kylo Ren actually flinches, and the blue dragon in his arms makes a sleepy worried noise. He shushes it gently. “No, Mother,” he says. “I’m here to surrender. And - I know I can’t come home, I know you can’t forgive me - but I’m here to apologize, too.”

General Leia watches him for a long moment, face blank and unreadable, and then she nods. “Chewbacca is going to have a lot to say to you, and so is Luke,” she says mildly. “And you and your...dragon?...will be answering to Luke and Rey until I say otherwise.”

“Yes, Mother,” says Kylo Ren. Finn wonders if he should start trying to think of the other man as ‘Ben’ now. It’s hard to think of him as a terrifying Sith Lord when he’s got no helmet on and is staring down with helpless adoration at a sleeping blue baby dragon.

General Hux actually _flinches_ when General Leia stares him down. She holds his gaze steadily until he looks down, then says, “You’re Brendol Hux the Younger, the destroyer of the Hosnian System. Give me one good reason I should not have you shot right now.”

Hux says, “First, because I have information on the First Order’s planned movements and strategies for the next ten years which I will share unreservedly in exchange for my life. And secondly, because I think killing me would kill Berith, and General Leia Organa does not kill innocents.”

General Leia snorts angrily, but she nods. “You’re going to tell us everything we want to know, and everything we _don’t_ want to know, and even things you don’t _know_ you know,” she informs him. “And if you put one foot out of line, I _will_ have you thrown in a cell so deep you’ll never see daylight, and leave you there to _rot_. Clear?”

“Clear, ma’am,” Hux says. General Leia nods, clearly dismissing him for the moment, and turns to Phasma.

“General Organa,” Phasma says, coming to attention as well as she can with a dragon in her arms. “I place myself at your command.”

“Do you now,” says General Leia speculatively. “Good to know.”

Then, finally, she turns to Finn and Rey and Poe, all of whom are looking some variant of sheepish and stubborn. “Dameron,” she says, “I send you out on a mission and you come back with three incredibly valuable prisoners and six dragons,” and there’s vast amusement in her voice. “You did not _actually_ need to improve on the day you brought me an ex-Stormtrooper and a new baby Jedi, you know.”

“Always going above and beyond, that’s me!” says Poe cheerfully.

“You are a _menace_ , Dameron,” General Leia sighs. “What sort of accommodations do your new companions need?”

“Meat and warmth,” Rey says promptly. “And a fair bit of room - I think they’re going to get a _lot_ bigger.”

“Meat and warmth,” General Leia says slowly. “Right. We can do that.”

*

They end up in the secondary training gym, which is used less and can be repurposed without seriously inconveniencing anyone, and the General arranges for them to be brought all the spare beat-up bedding in the base, so they manage to put together a vast untidy nest-like thing of blankets and pillows, and get the dragons bedded down in an enormous gleaming pile. And then they all stand around staring at each other for a while until General Leia and Master Skywalker and Major Ematt and Jess Pava show up, upon which things get even _more_ awkward.

Major Ematt beckons to Finn and Phasma, who glance at each other and go over to him; Master Skywalker summons Kylo Ren and Rey to his side with a single look; and General Leia marches over to Hux and leads him over to a corner, where she sits him down and glares him into meek submission. Finn has a moment’s deep envy of Poe, who slings an arm over Jess Pava’s shoulders and starts babbling to her about how beautiful little Saeth is, to Pava’s clear delight and wonder.

“So,” says Major Ematt to Finn. They know each other pretty well, now, since Finn impressed the older man enough that he’s now one of the trainers for the ground troops and is regularly hauled in to help plan upcoming missions. “Give me the short version, and I’ll get the long version later.”

“The short version, sir,” Finn says, “is that the single combat was interrupted by hatching dragons, each of which bonded to one of us. The bond seems to be both permanent and positive in impact. Phasma and Hux and Kylo Ren all surrendered in order to keep their dragons safe.” He pauses, then grins. “The bronze one closest to us is mine, and his name is Caith, and he’s _perfect_.”

“Ah,” says Major Ematt. “Congratulations, I suppose.” He turns to Phasma. “So. What can you bring to the Resistance, then?”

“Sir,” says Phasma crisply, “I am trained as an infantry officer and have extensive knowledge of the tactical doctrines of the First Order, as well as the locations and layout of multiple bases.”

Major Ematt nods thoughtfully. “I can work with that,” he says.

About then, all the dragons wake up and start to cry, and Finn abruptly loses all interest in anything but getting food for Caith. There’s quite a bit of chaos for a while while they wrangle slabs of meat into the room and figure out that at least for now their dragons need to be separated in order to eat, or else they snap at each other, and then General Leia had not quite realized how _much_ food six baby dragons go through and Finn and Phasma end up running down to the mess hall and bringing an entire hand-truck full of meat scraps back, working together in worryingly easy unison, and by the time the dragons are fed to satiation all of their humans are covered in blood and little meat bits and more than a little frazzled.

“You are all grounded,” General Leia announces, from the doorway. “No missions until your dragons are grown.”

“Fair,” Poe says, looking down at little Saeth, who has fallen asleep in his lap.

“Fair,” Rey agrees, from where she is stroking the edges of golden Amaranth’s wings. “Also, wow, I think they’re growing already, and their skin is starting to crack - we’re going to need some sort of oil.”

“Oil and a lot of meat,” General Leia sighs. “I’ll make it happen.”

“And curtains, please,” Poe says. “If I am going to be spending the next however many weeks in this room with six dragons and five other people, I would like some vague imitation of privacy.”

General Leia chuckles. “And curtains,” she agrees.

*

Finn has lived in barracks before, of course, though never quite like this - never with people he loves and people he hates and, most important of all, _dragons_. It’s interesting, in a weird sort of way, to watch as everyone grows slowly accustomed to their dragons, to their new situation, to each other. 

Poe dotes on his little green, playing with her and petting her constantly, his soft litany of how wonderful she is a nearly constant hum of background noise. It’d be a little much except that Finn - and, Finn suspects, the other four dragon-bonded humans too - all think the same of _their_ dragons, and just don’t have the words to say it.

Rey is less verbal about it, but she spends hours oiling golden Amaranth, clearly learning every curve and muscle of her dragon, and more hours staring into her dragon’s whirling eyes, learning Force-only-knows what from her shining companion.

Hux is meticulous in his attentions to brown Berith, ensuring that the meat his dragon eats is cut just so, the oil warmed to the perfect temperature and rubbed onto Berith’s skin in the same pattern every time, teaching Berith to walk by his side with a straight neck and proudly upheld head until it almost seems they could be kin despite their different species.

Kylo Ren - Ben, now, Finn supposes, though he tries to avoid calling the other man _anything_ \- has managed to get ahold of an entire new wardrobe, all of which is blue. He matches his blue Zereth perfectly, and when he plays with the little dragon - and all the dragons are playful when they are awake - it’s oddly hypnotic, his robes and the dragon’s hide swirling around each other.

Phasma is very quiet, but she takes careful note of everything that her bronze Samarth likes and does not like, and arranges things so that Samarth is never less than completely comfortable: the blankets Samarth likes best are always on his side of the nest, the pillow he prefers is ready for his head, the animal hearts which are his favorite meal are given to him every time his eyes begin to show hunger-red. It’s oddly adorable to watch them together.

And Finn? Finn is _gone_ over Caith. The bronze dragon is everything Finn never knew he wanted, and Finn happily spends hours and days playing with Caith and feeding Caith and oiling Caith and running laps around the room so Caith can chase him and sitting very still so Caith can nap on him and generally devoting his entire heart to the little dragon.

...Well, not so little anymore: the dragons are all growing at an _alarming_ rate. They were maybe five feet long when they hatched; two months later, they are _twelve_ feet long, and the room is getting a little crowded. Also they eat a _lot_.

“How big are you going to _get_ , shiny girl?” Finn hears Rey murmur to Amaranth one morning. Amaranth clearly replies, because Rey bites her lip in thought.

“What’d she say?” Finn asks. Amaranth is clearly the leader of the dragons - all of them defer to her, letting her eat first and choose her spot in the nest first - and also possibly the most intelligent, though it’s hard to assess that without being able to hear her. Certainly she seems to know more about how dragons work than the other babies do.

“She says she’s going to be the biggest, at about forty feet, maybe forty-five; the others will all be smaller. Caith and Samarth, then Berith, then Zereth, then Saeth at about twenty, maybe twenty-four feet.”

“Hear that, baby girl?” Poe croons to his green. “You’re going to be half the size of Amaranth, and you’re going to fly rings around her, aren’t you?”

Finn snorts with amusement. Trust Poe to be delighted by that - well, he’s a fighter pilot, of course he’s glad to have a dragon with that sort of maneuverability - and then Finn’s brain sort of short-circuits, and he says, shocked and worried and delighted and equal measure, “Wait - if they’re that big - can we _ride_ them?”

 _Of course_ , says Caith, as though it should have been obvious. _That is how it should be_.

“Holy _shit_ ,” says Poe gleefully, clearly having just gotten much the same answer from his own dragon. “You mean that, baby girl? You and me, we’re going to _fly_!” He and Saeth go whirling around the floor in a sort of oddly graceful dance, Poe whooping with glee. Hux and Berith shift out of their way with twin disdainful looks.

“We will require saddles,” Phasma observes, Samarth draping himself more thoroughly over her lap and making little happy purring noises as she rubs oil into his wings. “And clothing suitable for flying.” She gives Kylo/Ben a little side-eye as she says it, which is fair, because his flowing blue robe and cape are _not_ suited to flying at _all_. Finn chuckles, and scratches Caith’s eye-ridges.

“So you’re going to be enormous, buddy,” he observes, grinning. “Gonna carry _me_ around.”

 _It seems only fair_ , Caith observes. _You carried me when I was newly hatched_.

“That’s true,” Finn agrees. “And you were very heavy, too.”

Caith pushes his head more firmly against Finn’s scratching fingers and half-closes pleasure-green eyes. _I am heavier now_ , he observes. _Soon we will be large enough to learn to fly._

“Good to know,” Finn says. “Right. So. I think perhaps we’d better tell the General that we need to be...somewhere a little larger, and more open-air.”

“I agree,” Rey says, and Amaranth prances over to stick her head in Finn’s lap and demand scratching while Rey slips out the door. Finn sits there with a dragon-head butting into each hand and marvels quietly at what his life has become.


	3. The How of Dragons

They end up taking the _Millennium Falcon_ \- to Poe’s immense joy - to a different nearly-uninhabited planet, though this one is less forested and also its few inhabitants apparently owe General Leia a debt, because they’ve agree to feed the dragons from their vast herds of various animals. This actually works very well, because as soon as the dragons learn to fly - which they do with alarming rapidity once given the chance, and Finn may never quite recover from the feeling of his heart in his throat as Caith leaps off a mountainside for the first time and goes soaring off above the plains - they prefer to catch their own food. A herd is set aside for them, and the humans all get used to sitting some distance back and watching their dragons come swooping down onto hapless herd animals; the swoop usually comes with a surge of honestly disconcerting bloodlust echoing through the bond, which takes some getting used to.

It’s easy to fall into a routine: clean and oil the dragons, watch them feed, spar with each other to keep in shape, spend hours on comm lines to the Resistance base discussing strategy and tactics and the progress of the war. Finn doesn’t even notice at first as the weeks slip by, but three months later - Caith is an astonishing twenty feet long, and Samarth and Amaranth are even larger - Finn finally thinks to ask the question: “How long will your...your growing period be?”

 _Eighteen months_ , Caith replies. _Of our home planet, of course._

It has been five. So, another year and a bit, and while Finn _adores_ Caith, would be perfectly happy to spend the rest of his life doting on the dragon and doing almost nothing else, there’s the little matter of the war that they’ve all been...not _ignoring_ , precisely, but not really helping with either. And how much longer is the war going to ignore _them_? The First Order has been given a series of fairly dramatic setbacks due to the intelligence that Hux and Phasma have given the Resistance - have, in fact, been driven back to the Outer Rim, with heavy losses - but they are not dead. Supreme Leader Snoke, so far as anyone can tell, still lives, and is almost certainly going to want to find his wayward apprentice and the General and Captain who betrayed him.

“Besides the enormous claws and teeth, do you have any other defenses?” he asks Caith.

 _We can breathe fire, if there is firestone,_ Caith says, as casually as if it is not utterly astonishing. _And we can go_ between _._

“ _Between_?” Finn asks.

Caith blinks at him, eyes whirling green and blue and purple, and then takes off, circling once around Finn’s head and then _kriffing vanishing_ and reappearing five far-too-long heartbeats later above the herd of food animals half a mile away.

Finn sits down hard, and the other humans come sprinting over, alerted by their dragons or by his own distress.

“They can kriffing _teleport_ ,” Poe says wonderingly as Caith comes winging back, landing in front of Finn and nudging his head into Finn’s lap - the rest of him hardly fits anymore - eyes whirling lavender worry.

“Hey,” Finn says, “it’s okay, buddy, just - warn me next time, okay?”

 _Sorry_ , Caith says, _I will. I thought you knew_.

“No, this is all new to us,” Finn says, scratching Caith’s eye-ridges reassuringly. “Incidentally, guys, Caith says they can breathe fire if they’ve got the right materials.”

“Interesting,” Phasma says slowly. “That would be...an asset.” She smiles up at Samarth, perched on the hillside above them - and Finn’s still not used to seeing Phasma have _expressions_ \- and says, “You are truly formidable, darling.”

Samarth preens.

“Hmmmm,” says Hux thoughtfully. “Fire-breathing capacity. What unlikely creatures you are.” He also pats Berith on the head when the dragon looks over his shoulder pleadingly, so the cool calculating tone loses some of its impact.

“I wonder if you could breathe _blue_ flame,” Kylo/Ben says to Zereth, who snorts a laugh. Kylo/Ben’s first project when they got to this planet was to take his lightsaber apart and put it back together again blue, to go with his dragon and his robes. He’s...a little worryingly obsessive, if you ask Finn, but nobody did.

“If we are going to be fighting as a flying...what would you call it? A wing of dragons?” Rey says, “We had better start really getting _used_ to each other.”

Kylo/Ben starts to bristle. “And who said you’d be in charge of this wing, then?”

“Amaranth did,” Rey tells him evenly.

 _She’s right_ , Caith informs Finn, and from everyone else’s expressions, the same conversation is happening with every other dragon, too. _Gold leads; bronze flies gold, and then bronze leads too._

“Uh,” says Finn faintly, “‘flies’?”

_When we are old enough, Amaranth will rise to mate. Samarth and I will fly to win her. Who wins, sires her clutch; and the rider leads the wing and mates the queen’s rider._

Finn glances over at Phasma, who is looking just as taken aback as Finn feels. “That,” says Finn faintly, “is going to be awkward as hell.” Then the second half of it catches up with him, and he adds, “Wait, wait, _what_?”

Phasma is looking at Samarth with a similarly gobsmacked expression. At least all of them are getting nasty shocks at the same time; that’s something, surely. Not much, but something.

“Wait, _what_?” says Rey, who has clearly just finished having a very similar conversation with Amaranth. “Don’t _I_ get a say in this?”

“Please tell me this doesn’t involve me getting into single combat with Phasma,” Finn says to Caith. “I don’t actually think I could win that one.”

 _The riders do not fight,_ Caith assures him. _We fly._

“Oh well that’s alright then,” Finn says. “Except for the bit about ‘mates the queen’s rider.’ I’m...doesn’t Rey get to choose that?”

“Thank you,” Rey says. “I mean, I was figuring once the dragons were a little older and we all had our heads sorted out a bit that you and Poe and I would end up...together...but I didn’t think that was really going to involve dragons.”

“Wait, what, _really_?” says Poe, in tones of delighted wonder. Hux puts a hand over his face and sighs. Kylo/Ben snickers.

“You really managed to miss the utterly disgusting looks they keep giving you?” he asks Poe. Poe grimaces at him.

“I was a little distracted by Saeth,” he says. “And also they’re so clearly madly in love that I figured that was the end of it.”

“You are all ridiculous,” Phasma informs them.

 _I could fly Saeth too,_ says Caith helpfully. _Then you could mate her rider._

“Thanks,” Finn croaks, “but that’s not...not how humans do things, buddy.”

“Hm,” says Hux. “Is it _only_ the bronzes who can fly the queens?”

“Only the bronzes are usually big enough, according to Amaranth,” Rey answers, and then they all turn to look at Berith, who is - at least at this point - only a scant foot or so smaller than Caith. Hux’s expression grows speculative. Finn bristles and resolves instantly that if _anyone’s_ dragon is going to fly Rey’s queen, it’s going to be his Caith, and _not_ Hux’s Berith or Phasma’s Samarth.

 _Yes_ , says Caith. _Samarth will be larger but I will be faster. Berith will be too small, too slow. I will fly Amaranth._

...Which, Finn thinks, is still not quite a perfect solution, but it’s as close as he’s going to get.

*

“So,” says Finn over dinner that night - Kylo/Ben is a good cook, which is surprising; Poe is also a good cook, which is not; and if they let the two men into the kitchen at the same time, there are often _literal_ explosions, which is distressing to everyone, so there is a schedule and today it was Poe’s turn - “we should think about what we want to do about the First Order, because frankly I am astonished they haven’t found us already. And when they do, I suspect they’re going to be angry.”

“Supreme Leader Snoke will want the dragons,” Hux says grimly. “They are a new thing, and...intriguing.”

“Yes,” Kylo/Ben agrees. “He will want to know if they can be turned to the Dark Side, or controlled. The other Knights of Ren will likely be among the attackers.”

“That’s...how many more Knights of Ren are there?” Finn inquires.

“Seven,” says Kylo/Ben. Finn _really_ needs to figure out what to call him.

“Seven against two, not good odds,” Poe points out.

“They’d be better if the dragons could breathe fire,” Rey puts in, and then gets the peculiar abstracted look that means she is talking to Amaranth - the look they all wear when their dragons speak to them - and adds, “well, all but Amaranth, apparently, and also Saeth if she wants to ever actually lay eggs.”

“I wonder if I could mount a couple of X-Wing turbolasers on a saddle,” Poe says thoughtfully. “Or - hm - Saeth’s a clever girl, I wonder…” he trails off into abstraction, and Finn gives him a rueful look. _That_ is going to end in either disaster or something very neat, or possibly both.

“I can take the _Falcon_ back to Pern for firestone,” Rey says. “Amaranth showed me what it looks like, and if I load the cargo area we should have enough for...really almost anything.”

“Take...Phasma,” Finn says slowly, because sending Rey out with either Kylo/Ben or Hux is _clearly_ asking for trouble, and sending her with Poe or going himself leaves the last Resistance fighter completely outnumbered - and he _does_ believe in this weird truce they’ve got, this alliance born of dragons, but not enough that he wants to be alone with their former enemies, or leave Poe alone with them either.

“Sensible,” Phasma agrees.

*

The next day isn’t easy. It’s the first time any of them have been more than a few miles from their dragons, and Amaranth and Samarth sit at the landing field staring up into the clear blue sky with their eyes whirling yellow and lavender, making high-pitched keening noises in their throats. They know why Rey and Phasma are gone, they know it was important and that their riders will be back soon, they know there’s no way they could have fit in the _Falcon_ with their riders, but they still sit and keen helplessly.

“Right, so, not doing this again,” Poe says, coming up beside Finn where Finn is watching the pining dragons, Caith’s head in Finn’s lap.

“Nope,” Finn agrees. “This is _awful_.”

“I had a thought last night,” Poe says. “You know how when they kill, you can feel the satisfaction?”

“Yes,” says Finn, who had a _very_ bad moment the first time Caith killed a herd animal and had to go and be sick behind some bushes, because the visceral pleasure of killing a living thing is _not_ one that he had ever wanted to experience.

“So we can share their emotions when they’re strong enough,” Poe says. “D’you think that includes the...er...mating drive?”

Finn stares at him in blank horror. “So when Caith said that whoever flies the queen mates the queen’s rider, he meant literally right then.”

 _Of course_ , says Caith, sounding a little impatient. _What else?_

“Oh kriff,” says Finn.

“So,” says Poe, a little shakily, “if...if Rey was right, yesterday, about the three of us, we should maybe get our act together before the dragons are adults. Because I don’t know about you, but _I_ don’t think our Rey’s first sexual experience should involve dragons.”

“Or mine,” Finn says, grinning at Poe’s flabbergasted expression. “Yeah, you’re right. We’ve got a year, though; no need to rush.”

“No,” says Poe, and leans down and presses a very gentle kiss to Finn’s lips, and goes sauntering off towards where Saeth is sunning herself on the hillside.

 _Is that how humans mate?_ Caith inquires curiously.

“It’s a start, anyhow,” Finn tells his dragon.

 _It seems very complicated_ , Caith observes.

“Yes, well, that’s humans for you,” Finn sighs. “Tell me, does Berith actually _want_ to fly Amaranth?”

 _Maybe_ , says Caith. _He will if his rider asks it of him, and he’d like to lead a wing._

“I’ll have to keep an eye on that,” Finn sighs. “And what about Zereth? If you’re flying _both_ the female dragons, he’s going to be kind of left out too.”

 _Zereth wants to teach babies,_ Caith says. _He doesn’t care about mating._

“Interesting,” Finn says, looking across the valley at where Kylo/Ben and Zereth are apparently playing catch with a convenient boulder. “Well. We’ll see how that goes.”

 _I will fly Amaranth and you will be wingleader,_ Caith says contentedly. _And I will fly Saeth and you will mate with her rider. And there will be many eggs._

“You have a very simple outlook on the world sometimes,” Finn says, but he doesn’t stop scratching Caith’s eye-ridges, because some things are important, after all.


	4. The First Order vs. Dragons (Part 1)

Rey and Phasma get back with an entire cargo hold full of firestone, and after Amaranth and Samarth have finished crooning and nuzzling their riders and crooning some more, Amaranth apparently informs Rey that the dragons can’t _use_ the firestone until they’re full-grown. Which is...less useful than it could be. Finn can’t really blame the dragons for not telling the humans everything, since the dragons _are_ only five months old and therefore cannot be expected to behave like adults, but now he’s _worried_. If the First Order shows up before the dragons are fully grown, the dragons are going to be in serious danger. (So will the humans, but at least _they_ can shoot back.)

“They cannot have reconditioned _all_ the Stormtroopers,” Phasma points out. “They will be...surprised if they see me. Perhaps enough to cause them to defect or surrender, or at least to retreat.”

“And the officers will be likewise surprised by Lord Ren,” Hux observes. “Though he is not...attired as he was once.”

“Zereth is blue,” Kylo/Ben says serenely.

“Yes,” says Hux dryly. “I am very clear on this.”

“Come to think of it, I would rather like bronze armor,” Phasma says thoughtfully. Hux puts his head in his hands. Finn stifles a snicker. Hux is far less...evil...than Finn has any reason to expect, but he’s still rigid and far too devoted to rules, even the ones he makes for himself, and anything that makes him sigh like that is a good thing in Finn’s book. Though if Finn is going to be wingleader, he supposes he should learn how to deal with Hux a little better. No point having a weak spot in his wing, after all.

“Poe,” he says. “You had some thoughts about dragon-mounted blasters.”

“I did,” Poe agrees. “I’ll get on the comms with the base, see what I can hash out. I think it’ll work, at any rate.”

“Good,” says Finn. “The dragons will be large enough to ride soon, if they aren’t already, so we should probably start practicing that. And if we can get Master Skywalker here, even for a little while, I suspect Rey and Kylo could both use some more training. Phasma, if you and Hux could work on fortifying our compound, that would be helpful.”

Phasma nods; Hux gives Finn a narrow, unpleasant look, but he nods too. Yeah, Finn is going to have _trouble_ with him when Finn is properly wingleader. He’ll deal with it. It just won’t be fun.

*

Learning to fly on Caith is definitely on Finn’s top ten best moments in his life, right up there with meeting Rey, meeting Poe, and bonding to Caith in the first place. The other humans seem to agree with him on that matter, too, if the whoops of sheer joy which ring out over the plains as they take off are anything to judge by.

Flying on Caith is _nothing_ like flying in the stolen TIE fighter with Poe, or in the _Falcon_ with Rey. Finn is a _part_ of Caith, and Caith of Finn: it is Finn’s wings which catch the air, Finn’s hide which feels the sweep of the wind over them, and it is Caith’s eyes which water with the speed, Caith’s skin which pebbles with the cold air blowing by. They land triumphantly, Finn beaming so widely his cheeks hurt, Caith bugling his joy to the wide plains, with the rest of their wing around them. Even Hux is smiling, broad and unguarded for once.

“Holy kriffing hell that was _awesome_!” Poe whoops, half-falling off of Saeth’s back in his hurry to embrace her neck and scratch her eye-ridges. “That was glorious! You fly like a _dream_ , baby girl, you’re going to fly _rings_ around everyone else, just you wait!”

“We are doing that _every kriffing day_ ,” Rey says. “That was...that was the best thing ever!”

“I must agree,” Phasma says, and there’s a small smile on her face.

Finn agrees too, and schedules flight practice mornings and afternoons, because nothing rivals the feeling of being on Caith’s back as they swoop through the air.

And then one day Caith says, _Let’s go_ between _, Finn!_ and there is...blackness. Utter, terrifying, depthless blackness, cold as the void between stars, and Finn can’t feel his own body, Caith between his legs, _anything_ …

And it is over.

Finn slumps down over Caith’s neck, panting and gasping, and Caith spirals down to land and cranes his head back over his shoulder, eyes whirling purple-yellow worry and fear. _Are you alright?_

“Is _between_ always like that?” Finn chokes out.

 _Yes, of course,_ says Caith, as though being frozen nothingness is a regular part of his day.

“Oh _kriff_ ,” Finn says, and looks up as Rey and Amaranth blink into existence in the sky above them. Amaranth lands next to Caith, and Rey fumbles the straps off, slides gracelessly out of the saddle, and falls retching to her knees. Finn unstraps himself and hops down to go to her, holding out a water bottle when she stops retching and stroking her hair out of her face.

“Dear _Force_ ,” Rey croaks. “That was _awful_.”

“Kriff yes,” Finn agrees. “I knew they could teleport, but I thought it would be...less traumatic. Kriffing hell.”

“Augh,” says Rey, and then the rest of their wing blinks into existence in the sky above them, and they both stand and move out of the way so the other dragons can land. Phasma is chalk-white with cold and terror; Hux’s face is an immobile mask of horror and dismay; Poe is slightly green and shivering; and Kylo/Ben looks like he has seen his own death approaching. At least Finn and Rey aren’t the only ones who reacted badly to _between_.

“Teleportation is not all it’s cracked up to be,” Poe says when he’s gotten down out of Saeth’s saddle and collapsed gracelessly to the ground between her front feet. Saeth puts her head in his lap, eyes whirling with purple worry.

“I prefer traditional hyperspace,” Hux agrees, petting Berith absently with a shaking hand.

“That was a suboptimal experience,” Phasma says flatly, all her faint expressions wiped away by fear. Finn misses the tiny smiles and frowns that Phasma has been wearing for the last few months, so subtle he didn’t even always realize they were there until now he sees that they are gone again.

“Ugh,” says Kylo/Ben, wiping fear-sweat off of his face as he leans against Zereth’s shoulder. “That...was worse than training under Snoke.”

Finn takes a deep breath, regrets what he is about to say, and says, “So we need to do it again. We need to be able to get through that and keep going afterwards. Teleporting is going to be one of our best defenses - if we get fast enough we should be able to teleport away from blaster shots, for instance - but not if we collapse as soon as we come out of _between_.”

“I do not like it when you are right,” Kylo/Ben says, grimacing. “But you are.”

“Shit,” says Poe, but he climbs to his feet and hoists himself onto Saeth’s back. Finn uses Caith’s helpfully bent knee to get back into the saddle, and pats Caith soothingly on the neck before he straps back in. “Not _your_ fault that _between_ kind of sucks,” he reassures his dragon. “Let’s go practice.”

By the end of the day, they are all shaking and pale, and every one of them has thrown up at least once, but they’re starting to get used to the terrible cold nothingness of _between_.

Poe makes stew for dinner, and the feeling of being warmed through from the inside out is good enough that even Hux compliments the cook.

*

The Knights of Ren find them first. This shouldn’t actually be a surprise, since sending Force-users to catch Force-users makes a lot of sense, but nonetheless the first black-robed Sith Lord to show up _does_ catch them by surprise.

It doesn’t do him much good.

He shows up at night, creeping in under cover of darkness, and the first any of the humans know of it is Amaranth’s furious bugle and Caith’s mind-voice echoing in _all_ their heads as he cries, _Got you_!

They emerge from their rooms to find that Caith is _sitting_ on a very scared and slightly squashed Knight of Ren while Amaranth pokes at him with her claws and Saeth looks down at his face from bare inches away and hisses.

“Saeth, darling,” Poe says, and Saeth backs away from the man on the ground warily, still hissing, and hunkers down next to Poe. Amaranth sits back and tucks her front claws under her neatly, eyeing the man much like she looks at the herd animals when she’s deciding which one to eat.

“If you surrender, I’ll ask Caith to get off of you,” Finn tells the man. “If you do anything stupid, I’ll let the dragons tear you into bits.”

“I surrender,” squeaks the Knight.

“Alright,” Finn says evenly. “Caith, let him up please. If he tries to attack us you can squash him. Good job, by the way.”

 _I am very clever and very heavy,_ Caith says proudly.

“I didn’t know you could speak to all of us,” Finn adds as the Knight gets slowly and warily to his feet.

 _We all can, we just don’t like to,_ Caith says. _It’s harder and not as nice._

“I see. Well, well done tonight anyhow,” Finn says, patting Caith on the nose when the big bronze dips his head to nudge at Finn.

“Kitan,” Kylo/Ben says, something Finn can’t parse in his voice. “I did not expect you to be the first.”

“I wanted to know why you left us, Lord Ren,” the Knight says, voice raw and somehow desperate. “How did we fail you?”

“You did not fail me,” Kylo/Ben says calmly. “The Light Side...made a compelling claim upon my loyalties.” He raises a hand, and Zereth comes up behind him and looks over his shoulder at the Knight, snorting a little. “This is Zereth, for whom I will kill and die and who will never be parted from me.”

The Knight manages a shaky bow to the blue dragon. “Good evening, Master Zereth,” he says faintly. Finn’s estimation of him rises somewhat.

Zereth stretches his neck out until he can nudge the Knight, sending him stumbling but not actually trying to hurt him.

“If you will give your formal surrender, our...wingleader...is likely to allow you to live,” Kylo/Ben adds, gesturing to Finn, and Finn keeps his jaw from dropping only with a great effort. This is the first time one of the Dark trio has acknowledged him aloud as their wingleader - as their _leader_ \- and it’s about as astonishing as having dragons hatch right in front of him was. But he nods to Kitan when Kitan goes to his knees and stammers out a formal surrender, accepts it with the proper language, because that is what a wingleader does.

“I have a pilot with me - he is waiting with the ship,” Kitan says once he’s clambered to his feet again. “He will surrender if I order him to, and he is loyal to me above the First Order. May he join me?”

“Bring him here,” Finn says, and a few minutes later he is accepting the surrender of a young officer named Elias who practically radiates devotion for the Knight of Ren.

“Here are the rules,” Finn says sternly as his new prisoners stare at him in something like awe. “If you harm any of the dragons, the dragon’s rider will probably kill you with his or her bare hands, and I won’t stop them. If you harm a rider, the dragon will probably tear you into bits, and I won’t stop them. If you’re useful and don’t try anything stupid, we’ll feed you and do you no harm. Clear?”

“Clear, Wingleader Finn,” says Kitan, and Finn takes a moment to marvel at how much his life has changed.

*

The second Knight of Ren tries to kill Berith, who is sleeping closest to the landing field, and Hux comes out of the compound at a sprint and quite literally kicks the man to death. Berith has a small wound - barely a scratch on his great bulk, honestly - which Hux proceeds to fuss over until it is fully healed, barely letting Berith out of his sight. Finn...honestly can’t blame him. And is mildly impressed that Hux managed to kill a Knight armed with a lightsaber, though the fact that Berith had already knocked the Knight silly with a single blow of one enormous claw might have had something to do with that.

After that they post a watch, one dragon and one rider awake and alert at any given time. Finn makes the rotation as completely fair as he can, because if he’s going to be the wingleader, he’s going to do it _right_ \- and while he won’t be the dragons’ wingleader until Caith flies Amaranth, well, he can act like it until then.

*

The third, fourth, and fifth Knights of Ren arrive as a group, and challenge Kylo/Ben and Rey to formal combat, three on two. Finn wants to object, but this is a Force-user thing, not a dragon matter, and so he has to watch from the sidelines while Rey and Kylo/Ben fight side by side instead of against each other, a whirl of brown and blue and green that is difficult to parse into _people_ , they move so fast. At the end of it, there are three dead Knights of Ren, and Finn and Poe get to fuss over Rey’s small injuries as much as they want, and are rewarded both for not trying to keep her from fighting and for fussing over her afterwards with sweet, chaste kisses that leave Finn’s lips tingling for hours and make Poe smile dazedly while he makes dinner.

The sixth and seventh Knights of Ren also arrive together, but they walk up to the door of the compound in broad daylight, lightsaber hilts hanging from their belts, and wait politely until everyone has assembled to meet them.

“We are Knights of _Ren_ , not of Snoke,” says the shorter one, a woman by her voice. “We follow you wherever you go, even if it _is_ to the Light Side.”

“Kiara,” says Kylo/Ben, sounding like he has just been given a gift. “Kylia. Give your surrender to Wingleader Finn, and come in.”

 _It’s Weyrleader, actually, or will be,_ Caith informs Finn later that night. _Not just wingleader. There will be many wings, when I have mated Amaranth and our eggs have hatched - and Saeth’s eggs too, if she is fertile when we mate. But you will be Weyrleader, commander of all the wings in the weyr._

“Let’s...cross that bridge when we come to it,” Finn tells his dragon. “For now it’s just the one wing, after all.”


	5. The Weyr of Dragons

It’s a little more stressful being wingleader now that it’s not only been _acknowledged_ , verbally by Kylo/Ben and tacitly by Hux and Phasma and Poe - and, importantly, by _Rey_ , who seems perfectly fine with the idea - but also now that there are dragonless people living with them, three Knights of Ren and a confused but cheerful First Order officer. But if Finn is going to be wingleader, he is going to do it _right_ , and so he does his best, over the next few months, to spend time every week with each member of his wing, trying to figure out how they fit together into a coherent fighting force.

Phasma is actually the easiest: she and Finn were trained in the same way, and now that she’s acknowledged Finn as her leader, she’s perfectly obedient when he _does_ give orders, and has good suggestions when he doesn’t. They are eating lunch during one of their paired patrols - one of Finn’s innovations, sending all of them out in pairs to scan the surrounding area and get to know each other’s flying styles - when she says, abruptly and without preamble, “You were to be my successor. I chose well.” After that she says nothing else for the entire rest of the day, which is something of a relief, because Finn is so utterly flabbergasted. But after that he trusts her a little more. Not enough to give up his newfound determination that Caith, and no other dragon, will fly Rey’s Amaranth, but enough to let his background suspicion of her wisp away, leaving only a sort of quiet respect in its place.

Poe is used to being a commander, but he freely acknowledges that Saeth is not going to be able to give orders to the other dragons. “I’m just as happy to be taking orders, when they make sense,” he assures Finn. “And I know you won’t send us into battle for anything but good reasons.” He grimaces. “Got too much of that with the Republic. And yeah, I’m an _X-Wing_ commander, but these beauties are not X-Wings. Totally different problem.” But he is happy to sit down with Finn to work on battle techniques using dragons, drawing on more than two decades of experience with small, fast ships to figure out which tactics are likely to suit the wing.

Rey just grins at Finn when he brings up the ‘wingleader’ thing. She leans back against Amaranth’s leg, looking utterly at ease, and says, “Wingleader commands the people, gold commands the dragons. You’re actually trained in command, and I and Kylo are going to have to go off and do Jedi things occasionally, so it’s really best if you’re in charge all the time. _I_ don’t want to be giving orders! I just want to do what’s needed and be done.”

“And the rest of it?” Finn asks, because _he’s_ not entirely comfortable with having their relationship be compelled by dragons.

“I chose you already, you and Poe both,” Rey says serenely. “That’s part of why Amaranth is going to choose Caith - that and he _is_ the best suited to fly her. But honestly as far as I can tell all the dragons are doing is giving us a reason to actually _do_ something instead of pining at each other.” She gives Finn an impish grin, and Finn has to smile back: they _had_ been pining at each other, dancing around each other, for far too long before the dragons told them they had a deadline. Not that they’ve gotten much further than a few kisses _since_ that point, what with Knights of Ren and battle plans and so on, but at least they all know where they’re going now.

“What do you want me to call you?” Finn asks Kylo/Ben on their third paired patrol. The other man has been mostly silent, helpful when necessary but extremely reserved, though his blue Zereth is a cheerful, friendly creature.

“...Call me Ren,” says the former Sith Lord after a while. “Ben Solo died when he killed his father, and Kylo died when Zereth hatched, but I am Master still of the Knights of Ren; I will be named for then.”

“Ren,” Finn agrees. “Fair enough.”

The rest of the patrol is flown in silence, but it’s not as uncomfortable as it has been, so Finn counts it as a win. And Finn makes a point of calling Ren by name in front of the others, trying hard to signal his acceptance of the new name and of the man who wears it.

And then there is Hux. Hux, who was a General and who now is subordinate, by dragon reckoning, to _two_ of those he used to command, and one of them a traitor. (Well, a traitor _before_ Hux himself fled the First Order.) Hux, whose brown Berith is not _quite_ large enough to challenge Caith and Samarth for Amaranth. Hux, who obeys Finn’s orders silently but watches Finn with cool unreadable eyes.

“I learned,” says Hux, in the middle of their eighth near-silent patrol together - Finn has tried to strike up a conversation now and then, and Hux has given him cool looks and curt answers - “not to fight battles I could not win, while I was General of the _Finalizer_. Taking this wing from you would be a battle I could not win, not when you have won Phasma’s loyalty and Ren’s alliance. If Berith _can_ fly Amaranth, he will; but I doubt he can. That is no slur on _you_ , darling,” he adds, patting Berith’s neck gently. Finn thinks that if Hux could only treat the other humans a little more like he treats his dragon, they would all get on better.

“‘I won’t fight you’ isn’t the same thing as ‘I will obey you,’” Finn points out evenly. “And when it comes to fighting, I need to know that my wing will work as one unit, without anyone going haring off on their own and leaving someone’s flank open.”

“While I am one of your wing, I will obey you in battle, and out of battle so long as the orders are fair,” Hux says calmly. “But someday I will not be of your wing.”

“Good enough,” says Finn slowly. “I can accept that.” He gives Hux a long, steady look. “That said, if you _ever_ try to harm Rey or Poe, I will kill you. Am I clear?”

“You are,” Hux says.

Detente is not really peace, but they can work together, and that will have to do.

*

“So if we’re going to be riding them into battle,” Finn says over dinner a few nights later, “we should practice that.”

“We have been,” Rey says dubiously.

“No, we’ve been practicing _flying_. But we’re all very good at that by now. I think now we need to think about what we’re likely to be facing, and practice flying against those threats as a wing, not as individuals. Amaranth’s going to have to take point to start with, because all the other dragons listen to her, but I think we should _all_ take turns leading the wing in practice, in case someone is injured and needs to drop out - we all need to know what calls to make.”

“Not a bad thought,” Phasma says, nodding approvingly at Finn. Finn tries hard not to grin at her - he thought that when he left the First Order he’d stop hoping for her approval, but apparently it still means a great deal to him.

“So what sort of tactics are we likely to see?” Poe asks. “I know what sort of moves the ‘troopers use against _X-Wings_ , but dragons aren’t space-capable.”

“And what outcome do we want?” Rey asks. “I mean - some of the ‘troopers might be like Finn, might be...saveable.”

Finn is somewhat relieved, honestly, that _he_ didn’t have to raise that point. Because he can’t be the only Stormtrooper who ever thought of running - just the only one to ever make it out. And _that_ was luck and Poe. But it makes something cramp in his gut to think of firing down on ‘troopers just like him from Caith’s broad back, knowing that they can’t hit _him_.

 _I will help you rescue them if I can,_ Caith says reassuringly. _If they are like you, we will know it. We will be able to find them and take them to safety._

“Huh!” says Finn. “Caith says the dragons will be able to tell if any of the ‘troopers are ‘like me.’ So we could conceivably tell which ones would be safe to give parole, or to capture instead of killing.”

“Finding one Stormtrooper among many, in the midst of battle, is not going to be simple,” Phasma points out. “But - Samarth and Caith and Amaranth, and perhaps Berith, could probably pick someone up, even with our weight on them already.”

“The dragons can speak to all of us if they wish - and Zereth says he thinks he could speak to a Stormtrooper, too, if the ‘trooper had a mind like ours,” Ren puts in. “I suspect that if a dragon ordered a ‘trooper to lay down his blaster and be still, they would be obeyed.”

Rey looks thoughtful. “Amaranth says she could speak to a great many people, if she tried. Do you think perhaps she could order _all_ of them to lay down their arms? She can command dragons - why not people?”

“Berith thinks that might work,” Hux agrees. “But if it does not, we must be prepared to fight.”

“And if Snoke is with them, it won’t matter what Amaranth says,” Ren says grimly. “Fear of him will override any offers or commands she may make.”

“Alright,” Finn says. “So we’ll need to take out Snoke, if he’s with the attackers.”

Ren and Rey glance at each other across the table. “My bond with him is broken,” Ren says at last, reluctantly. “And he cannot reforge it so long as I am bonded to Zereth. But that only means that he will make an effort, as soon as he understands that my dragon shields me from him, to destroy or control Zereth.”

“Ugh,” Rey says. “I don’t _think_ dragons can be controlled with the Force, but I don’t really want to find that out the hard way. So Amaranth and Zereth should stay out of the fight, as much as possible anyway.”

“It is my fight,” Ren says.

“It is mine too,” Rey replies. “I live in this galaxy, don’t I? I don’t want to be a slave to some nasty old Dark Lord, and I don’t want to see my dragon die or be enslaved beside me. There’s no point in us fighting him one-by-one; we’ll have a far better chance working together.”

“...It is very frustrating when you are right,” Ren says at last.

*

Practicing for war is slightly less pleasant than simply flying, but Finn kind of likes it nonetheless: likes feeling his wing like an extension of his fingers, spread out in formation and learning to swoop and dive and attack in perfect unison, to cover each other’s weak points and blind spots, to accommodate sudden changes in orders or in the actions of the illusory attackers that they are pretending to battle.

Caith swoops under Samarth’s belly, and Samarth does a sudden wingover above him, so that Phasma’s blaster fire and Finn’s hit the same target at the same moment. Some little distance away, Berith and Zereth manage the same maneuver, somewhat less elegantly, while Saeth darts and dances around Amaranth, hopping _between_ and coming out exactly in position to drop the small flash-bang grenade Poe is carrying on the field of weeds which is standing in for ‘enemy troops,’ then flashes _between_ again as the entire rest of the wing swoops down on the presumably disoriented fake opponents, firing at will. Saeth reappears behind them - Finn can feel her and Poe, a warm buzz in the back of Caith’s mind - and Poe whoops with glee.

“Good job!” Finn calls as they all wing upwards again to a safe height. “Good shooting, everyone, I think we have that one down!”

“One more go at the ‘incoming fighters’ routine,” Rey yells back. “Then dinner!”

Finn waves a hand in the gesture they have developed to mean ‘agreement’ - it’s sometimes hard to get close enough to see nods, or hear shouted concurrence - and guides Caith into place for the run. Saeth is, not surprisingly, the best at this one: she’s small and fast enough that she can corkscrew through the air in ways none of the others can. Amaranth and the bronzes are nowhere near as agile, and have had to settle for bulling through the air and skipping _between_ in tiny jumps to avoid illusory blaster fire. Zereth and Berith are just that sliver more maneuverable, able to almost imitate Saeth’s acrobatics. Finn watches all of them, letting Caith fly the run without Finn’s interference, taking mental notes on everyone’s performance. He’s good at this, he learned with the ground troops back before he bonded a dragon: he can see even the smallest errors and hesitations, and usually can figure out how to coach people into better form or more precise strikes. And once his wing figured out that he _is_ good at this, all of them have begun to listen to his advice, though it’s sometimes awkward for him to be giving suggestions to Phasma or - especially - to Hux. Still, what he sees tends to be important, and he takes note of the way Berith’s left wing drops, how Amaranth takes a little too long to prepare a jump _between_ , and asks Caith to help him remember what to tell everyone over dinner and debriefing.

 _There is someone at the landing field,_ Caith says as the practice wraps up. _Friends._

“Do you know them?” Finn asks, the words whipped away by the wind as Caith swings around towards home.

 _Rey’s Luke,_ Caith says.

“Rey!” Finn calls across the space between their dragons. “Ren! Master Luke is here to see you!”

Rey lets out a whoop and Amaranth goes barrelling past Finn towards the landing field, with Zereth riding her wake, Ren grim-faced on his blue dragon’s back. Finn laughs and turns Caith towards the hillside above the compound. Let Rey have her reunion with her mentor; Finn wants his dinner. Jedi Masters can wait a while.


	6. Take Joy When It Comes

“You have made a very nice home here,” Luke says appreciatively as Rey leads him into the compound, beaming. Ren trails behind them looking rather like a kicked puppy - he clearly _wants_ to get Luke’s attention, and at the same time does not want to be noticed at all. Luke has chosen to ignore him, which Finn suspects is wise.

Poe is making dinner, with Elias as his assistant; the three Knights of Ren are standing near the back wall, tense and expressionless, clearly waiting for Luke to attack them - they are, after all, technically Dark. But Luke just gives them a serene smile and lets Rey lead him to a chair. Finn hands the older man a glass of water - they don’t have anything else, on the theory that they are a fractious enough group without the addition of alcohol - and takes his own seat. Phasma is cleaning the leather armor they have all taken to wearing while flying; Hux is out with Berith, as is his usual habit. He does not like to socialize.

“Your dragons have gotten much bigger,” Luke observes calmly. “It is hard to believe that you could carry them when they were newly hatched.”

Phasma snorts softly. Finn smiles. “Caith says it’s only fair for them to carry us, since we used to carry them.”

“I should like to see that,” Luke admits.

“It’s like nothing else,” Poe says from the kitchen. “It’s...even flying an X-Wing can’t compare. It’s glorious.”

“I shall try very hard not to be jealous,” Luke replies, smiling. Finn remembers suddenly that Luke was quite a pilot himself when he was younger - he’ll be able to properly appreciate Poe and Saeth’s acrobatics. And then Luke looks at Ren, who has slunk over to stand beside the Knights, and says, “Perhaps we should speak outside.”

Ren and the Knights follow him out without a word, all straight-backed and proud with their terror leaking out around the edges. Finn glances at Rey, who shrugs. “He won’t hurt them,” she says. “Should we set the table, Poe?”

“Sure,” Poe says. “No, slice that a little finer, Elias - we want it to go soft when we brown it. And don’t get the juice in your eyes. Forks,” he adds, “and spoons, I think.”

“Forks and spoons aye,” Finn says, and rises to help Rey set the table. Phasma moves her armor out of the way politely.

“Am I going to need to drink the well dry again?” Rey asks Poe as she puts out water glasses. “Because seriously, warn me ahead of time, yeah?”

“No, this is much blander,” Poe says, chuckling. “I didn’t want to drive Luke Skywalker screaming into the night.”

“Oh, but you’ll send _me_ scrambling for the river, _I_ see how it is,” Rey teases, grinning. “Next thing you’ll be telling me you’d rather be kissing Master Luke, too!”

Poe leans out of the kitchen as she goes by, snags her around the waist and bends her back into a long, showy kiss. “I promise,” he says as he lets her up, “I much prefer kissing you.”

Rey is quite pink in the cheeks, and Finn wonders if he could imitate Poe at some point. That looked like fun. “You are a _terror_ ,” she informs Poe, still grinning.

“Pilots usually are,” Luke observes, leading the Knights and Hux in. “Is that dinner I smell?”

“It is,” Rey says, and surrenders the seat at the head of the table - usually hers as rider of the queen dragon - to him gracefully. The table is a little crowded - it was built for six, after all, and ten is always a bit of a squeeze. Eleven is only barely manageable.

Poe’s concoction is very good, and, as promised, not too hot; Finn eats quickly, an old habit he’s not yet been able to break, concentrating on the food and not the quiet dinner conversation around him. When he’s done, he looks up to find Luke watching him, an assessing look on the older man’s face.

“You are the leader here,” Luke observes quietly. “Rey is the heart of this group, but you are its head.”

“Yes,” Finn says. No point in equivocating, after all. “I’ll be wingleader if Caith flies Amaranth, and since we’re all pretty certain that’s how it’ll go, I’m acting as wingleader now.”

“You’ve grown since last I saw you,” Luke says, smiling a little. “You’ll be a force to be reckoned with, when the day comes.”

“He’s already a force to be reckoned with,” Poe says, grinning across the table at Finn.

“True enough,” Luke says calmly. “I plan to stay with you at least a month; will that be acceptable?”

Finn glances across the table at Rey and Poe. They’re already short on bedrooms - they had two spares, which are now given over to the Knights of Ren (and Elias, who rooms with Kitan) - but maybe if he sleeps in the common room Luke can take his bed in the room he shares with Poe…

“You may have my room, Master,” Rey says, grinning. “It’s tidiest.”

Finn’s jaw drops at this blatant falsehood. Luke raises an eyebrow at his apprentice.

“Well, okay, it really isn’t,” Rey says cheerfully. “But it’s tidy enough, and I can room with Poe and Finn. Can’t I?”

Finn blinks at her for a minute, then nods enthusiastically. Luke chuckles. “Very clever, apprentice,” he says, voice full of amusement.

 _It’s about time,_ says Caith in Finn’s mind. _Humans make mating so very complicated._

Finn tries hard not to choke on his sip of water.

*

He’s sidetracked on his way back from checking on Caith - something all the dragon riders do after dinner, because a few extra minutes with the dragons is always valued - when Elias says diffidently, “Wingleader Finn? Could I talk to you?”

Finn does not sigh, though he is both rather tired and also rather eager to go find out what his new sleeping arrangements are - Rey! In his room! Maybe even in his _bed_ , warm and beautiful - but this is part of the job. “Sure, Elias,” he says, and follows the other man back out onto the hillside. Caith raises his head and snorts at them amiably.

“Kitan and the Ladies asked me to speak with you,” Elias says once they’ve found a good spot to sit. Caith eels around improbably to stick his head in Finn’s lap - it’s much too large, but Finn doesn’t care - and Elias earns a few more points in Finn’s book by reaching over to scratch Caith’s eye-ridges without hesitation.

“Alright,” Finn says. “I won’t bite.”

Elias slants half a grin at him. “No, but Caith might, if I annoy you, and I don’t wish to make a closer acquaintance with his teeth.”

 _People don’t smell tasty,_ Caith objects. _I would bite him if he threatened you. Not if he just annoyed you._

Finn chuckles at his dragon. “Thank you, dear one, that’s very reassuring.” Then, to Elias, “Caith won’t bite you either, so go on.”

“The first thing,” Elias says, “is that the Knights have asked Master Skywalker to teach them, and he agreed.”

“That’s lovely, but I’m not sure why I need to be involved,” Finn says dubiously.

“The second thing is that - well, they were talking to Lord Ren, and he said that when the dragons are old enough they’ll mate - your Caith and Amaranth, that is. And there might be eggs.”

 _Yes, eggs,_ Caith says happily. _I will sire many eggs - perhaps even queens._

“Yes,” Finn says. “That’s the idea, anyhow.”

“Would...if the Knights wanted to have dragons of their own, would you...object?”

Finn considers this. “It’s up to the dragons,” he points out. “They choose. We just...are lucky enough to be chosen. But no, if the eventual, hypothetical baby dragons choose the Knights of Ren - or you, for that matter - I won’t object. You’d be welcome in my wing so long as you all obeyed orders in battle and didn’t make trouble out of it.”

“ _Me_?” says Elias incredulously. “You think _I_ could maybe be chosen?”

 _He could_ , Caith tells Finn. _He would be suitable for a blue or a green, maybe even a brown. Not bronze._

“Caith says it’s possible,” Finn says. Then, thoughtfully, “Honestly I’d be quite pleased if the Knights ended up with dragons. So far as I can tell, being bonded to a dragon is the best way to keep someone on the Light side that anyone’s ever found. It brought _Hux_ to the Light, which I would have said was utterly impossible. So I’d probably be more likely to trust them if they had dragons.”

“Ah,” says Elias. “That makes sense.” He smiles rather dreamily down at Caith. “Me? Really? I’d be...that would be the most amazing thing.”

Finn can’t help grinning. “It really is,” he agrees. “And if Caith says you have a chance, well, he knows better than I do.”

“Thank you, Wingleader,” Elias says quietly. “I’ll tell the Knights what you told me.” He grins, pats Caith gently on the head, and stands. “And now I’ll let you get to bed,” he adds, and Finn shakes his head in rueful amusement and Elias heads back into the compound. Is he _that_ transparent? Oh, probably.

 _Go find your mates,_ Caith says, lifting his head out of Finn’s lap and nudging him hard enough to nearly knock him over.

“Bunch of busybodies the lot of you,” Finn grumbles cheerfully, and follows Elias in.

*

Poe and Rey are waiting for him in the room he normally shares with Poe alone. Poe is sprawled out on one bunk with his head in Rey’s lap, and she is running her fingers through his hair; Poe has his eyes closed and is making low, happy rumbling sounds deep in his chest. Finn pauses in the doorway to take in the scene, heart hurting with how sweet it is.

“Going to stand there and watch all night?” Rey inquires after a moment, grinning up at him.

“No,” Finn says, and comes in, closing the door behind him, and settles on the bed next to Rey, leans down to share an upside-down kiss with Poe, gets another from Rey as he sits up again. “So, who gets which bed?”

“Well,” says Poe, still without opening his eyes, “you and I could split, buddy; or you and Rey; or me and Rey; or! We could be excessively clever and shove the bunks together so all of us will fit.”

“Oh, let’s be excessively clever,” Rey says, grinning.

It takes them a few minutes to get everything out of the way and shove the bunks together, but once they have, Rey sprawls out on her stomach over both of the beds and says, “Oh, this is nice - so where are _you_ going to sleep?”

Finn laughs aloud and flops down half on top of her, kissing her ear. “Mmm, comfy Rey.”

“Argh, gerroff!” Rey complains. Poe flops down across her other side, grinning over her back at Finn.

“Nope, you’re stuck with us,” he says cheerfully. “Damn, bony shoulders you got, sweetheart.”

Rey wriggles around until she’s on her back between them, no longer squished. “You’re both _awful_ ,” she says merrily.

“But you _loooove_ us,” Poe says, giving her a wide-eyed adoring look.

“Force help me, I do,” Rey sighs, and hauls Poe into a kiss, lets go of him after a moment and turns to catch Finn’s lips in another. “So,” she says when they have snuggled up more comfortably around her, “Master Luke told me this afternoon - and I quote - ‘Those sweet boys are probably not related to you, and life is short, so you should take joy in them.’”

“...Probably not related?” Finn asks dubiously. “That was in question?”

Poe snerks. “Remind me to tell you guys the story of Princess Leia Organa and the farmboy and the good-for-nothing-smuggler one of these days, as related to me in excruciating detail by C-3PO,” he says. “But in the meantime, so long as we’re all in a lovely big bed with nothing to do for the rest of the evening, shall we take a little joy?”

“Yes,” says Finn, leaning across Rey to kiss Poe carefully. “Yes, I rather think we should.”

“Definitely,” says Rey.

“Well, if my Wingleader and my queen rider _both_ agree, it must be a good idea,” Poe teases, and puts a hand on Rey’s cheek to pull her into a long, sweet kiss. Finn watches avidly. It’s a deeper kiss than they’ve shared before, not showy like the one in the dining room but sure and warm and a little toothy - Rey shivers when Poe bites at her mouth, sets her teeth into his lower lip and makes him moan - and it’s one of the most beautiful things Finn’s ever seen.

And then Rey squirms around and kisses Finn, shows him all the things Poe has just taught her, and Finn wraps his arms around her and pulls her over on top of him, a warm weight, so small for such strength, and Poe tucks himself against Finn’s side and strokes a hand through Rey’s hair and murmurs soft, sweet words in Finn’s ear, and this - this is one of those moments that Finn tries to tuck away, like tiny precious holos, in the back of his mind: a perfect moment, beautiful as the stars.


	7. The First Order vs. Dragons (Part 2)

The dragons are only three months from their majority when the First Order finally arrives to do battle. The Resistance gets word of the coming attack to Finn and his wing with enough lead time that they can make a few final preparations and send messages to the ranchers suggesting that they take cover and not come out until the battle is over, and General Leia assures Finn that there will be a squadron of fighters on their way to back Finn’s wing up as soon as possible - but unfortunately the First Order is launching a multi-pronged attack, with more troops than they ought to have given the setbacks the Resistance has handed them recently, and so until the Resistance can beat off their other assaults, Finn and his wing are on their own.

“We’ve got this,” Finn assures a frazzled-looking General Leia over the comms. “I don’t think that they’re going to be expecting dragons, and we’ve got some other tricks up our sleeves.”

“Don’t get yourselves killed,” General Leia admonishes him.

“Yes, ma’am,” Finn says, and General Leia ends the transmission. Finn turns to his wing. “You heard the General - nobody do anything stupid. Let’s do this thing, people.”

“Yes, _sir_!” chorus the Knights of Ren. Phasma salutes with a wry smile. Poe comes to attention and clicks his heels, grinning. Finn sighs and rubs a hand over his face.

“Come on, let’s go,” Rey says, and trots out of the room with the rest of the dragon riders on her heels.

The First Order’s troops will be approaching from the landing field - it really is the best place to land for several miles around - and so Finn’s wing arrange themselves out of sight, waiting for Phasma’s signal. She has the most dangerous position, at least to start with: high on the crest of a hill in shining chrome armor, visible for miles, instantly recognizable to any Stormtrooper. Finn is hoping that the sight of Captain Phasma waiting for them will give their enemies some _serious_ qualms.

 _It is working_ , Caith says smugly. _The ones in the lead have seen her as they come off the ships, Samarth says, and they are thinking ‘Shit, Captain Phasma is here.’_

“Tell me when they’re all off the ships,” Finn says. A few moments later, Caith does. “Alright; tell Samarth time for Stage Two.”

 _Samarth says they are very scared of him,_ Caith announces. Up on the hilltop, Samarth has stepped into view, looming over Phasma with his wings half-spread, a bronze nightmare come to life. _They are thinking, ‘Shit, shit, a dragon!’_

“Good,” Finn says smugly. “Stage Three.”

On the hilltop, Phasma leaps smoothly up into Samarth’s saddle, strapping herself in with easy, efficient motions, and Samarth launches himself into the sky with a great commotion of wings. Finn and the rest of the wing take off at the same moment, circling around to gain height before they join Samarth in the sky above the Stormtroopers, and Caith chuckles in Finn’s mind. _‘Shit, shit, shit, Captain Phasma on a dragon, we are so kriffed!’_ he says cheerfully. _Your plan is working!_

“Don’t jinx it,” Finn mutters, words lost in the wind as they wheel through the air. The wing forms with Rey and Amaranth at its apex, Finn and Phasma at her right and left shoulders, Ren shining blue behind them and Poe and Hux weaving a dizzying brown-and-green pattern around all of them. On the ground behind the landing field, the Knights move into position, lightsabers held low and not yet activated. Ambushing the attackers might not be _strictly_ honorable, but it’s also likely to be _effective_ , so Finn doesn’t really care about the honor of it.

Rey has a bullhorn, one they’ve tested repeatedly, and Finn can’t help beaming with pride as her voice rings out over the landing field: “Surrender or be slain,” she calls. “Lay down your weapons and you will be spared.”

For a moment, Finn thinks that’s actually going to work.

Then the last squad of Stormtroopers comes down the ramp carrying a great black palanquin that makes Caith snort with disgust and discomfort, and from the palanquin comes a great rasping voice: “Slay them all.” The Stormtroopers raise their blasters, and Finn grimaces and urges Caith a little higher and takes aim. This is going to be _deeply_ unpleasant.

 _Rey says draw fire, she and Ren are going to plan C,_ Caith informs Finn, and Finn nods - this was one of the contingency plans they drew up, even if it was one they hoped they wouldn’t have to use, and as Ren and Rey urge their dragons higher, well out of blaster range, Finn and the rest of his wing swoop a little lower, taunting the troops below.

The Stormtroopers fire.

Massed blaster fire, Finn and Caith discover, is actually _easier_ to evade than they had expected. A blink _between_ \- a bare second in freezing nothingness - and they are past the fire, swooping down low enough for Finn to pick off the officers with swift, sure shots. He doesn’t want to kill any more of the common ‘troopers than he has to - he remembers _being_ one of them, after all - but taking out the officers will help ruin the cohesive nature of the little army. Around him, Hux and Phasma and Poe are all doing much the same thing - Poe and his Saeth are taking _dangerous_ risks, swooping down so low it seems they are actually skimming the helmets of the Stormtroopers, and Finn’s breath hisses between his teeth, but Poe is _good_ at this, as good as he is in an X-Wing, and he and Saeth rise unscathed from each run, Saeth bugling triumph - and the Stormtroopers’ attention is entirely taken up with the four dragons taunting them. Just as the plan requires.

Because that way, when Rey and Ren appear on the _ground_ on either side of the great black palanquin, there is a single precious moment of utter confusion among the Stormtroopers - though not, importantly, among the wing, whose dragons have kept them all well in sync - which allows Amaranth to rear up on her hind legs, forty feet of golden dragon in full fury, and pull the whole damned contraption over on its side, upon which Zereth reaches into the resulting heap of black cloth and splintered wood and hauls a sputtering, furious Supreme Leader Snoke out by his scrawny neck…

And before the Supreme Leader can even get a hand onto his lightsaber, Zereth bites his head off.

Finn blinks. That actually _wasn’t_ in the plan - the plan assumed that Rey and Ren would challenge the Supreme Leader to a formal duel - but...it does seem to have _worked_...so Finn isn’t complaining.

Zereth apparently is. _Zereth says he tasted terrible,_ Caith informs Finn. _Ick._

Amaranth and Zereth take off, flashing _between_ as they rise, and Finn takes note of the utter consternation that the abrupt death of the Supreme Leader has caused in the ranks of the Stormtroopers and sends Caith swooping in very low, far too low for safety if anyone fires, cups his hands around his mouth and bellows, “Surrender! Surrender and be spared!”

There is a breathless pause as Caith claws for height again, and then, below them, the Stormtroopers begin to throw down their blasters, to kneel in the dirt of the landing field, their hands behind their helmets, and Finn lets himself lean against Caith’s neck for just a minute in relief and gratitude. It worked. It _worked_.

 _Well done,_ Caith says softly. _We did it._

“Yes, we did,” Finn agrees, and follows the rest of his wing down to begin taking the Stormtroopers’ surrenders.

Zereth is the only dragon who does not join the others, and Finn is briefly worried by this until Caith says, _He’s washing his mouth out in the river. He says he may be a while._

It’s actually kind of interesting to see which of the wing each Stormtrooper moves toward. Many of them turn instinctively to Phasma, decades of training, of respecting her above all other officers, making her the obvious choice. Phasma gives them orders in a clear voice, sets them to carrying the dead to one side and burning the remains of the palanquin and the Supreme Leader, and Finn can see them relax as they go about their duties. There is a certain relief to being given clear, sensible orders by someone who has always been an authority.

Others go to Rey, on her golden dragon with her head held high, and Finn notes with approval their instincts for who has the power, who leads the victors. Amaranth is the largest dragon - though Finn of course thinks Caith is the most beautiful - and Rey, proud and glorious, is clearly something special.

Some choose Hux, though most are wary of him. A few approach Poe with hesitant, awed steps - Finn would wager quite a bit that those are the ones who dreamed of being pilots, the ones who wanted most to be more than simple ‘troopers, and never could

And some come to Finn.

“You’re FN-2187,” says the first to reach him, something like awe in her voice. “Aren’t you?”

“I was,” Finn agrees. “Now I’m Finn.”

“You have a _name_?” she asks, raw envy clear in her tone.

“No one is nameless in the Resistance,” Finn tells her. “Take off your helmet; give me your surrender and tell me your designation, and we’ll get you settled.”

She takes off her helmet, revealing close-cropped dark hair and wide dark eyes in a pale face. “I’m GZ-1800,” she says. “I surrender - I and my squad.”

“I accept your surrender,” Finn says solemnly. “Start rounding up all the blasters, please, and stacking them over by the ships.”

GZ-1800 nods, salutes, and then pauses. “If we - if we were on your side,” she says hesitantly, “would we have names?”

“Yes,” Finn tells her gently. “You’d have names. You could even choose your own.”

“I see,” says GZ-1800 thoughtfully, and leads her squad off to gather blasters. Finn smothers a grin.

 _If they all switch sides, there won’t be a First Order anymore,_ Caith says smugly.

“They won’t all switch,” Finn murmurs back. “But - maybe _enough_ of them will.”

*

“...so we’ve got about three hundred surrendered Stormtroopers barracked next to the landing field,” Finn finishes, and General Leia puts a hand over her face and chuckles helplessly for a moment.

“I don’t know why I was worried about you,” she says when she’s recovered her composure. “Of _course_ you managed to destroy the Supreme Leader and subdue his troops. Why wouldn’t you have?”

“You mentioned that Ren and Rey were responsible for the death of Snoke,” Luke says. “I am rather curious as to which of them struck the final blow. I felt his death in the Force, but I could not tell then who had caused it.”

Finn snickers. Ren draws himself up and strokes his blue robes proudly. “ _Zereth_ slew Supreme Leader Snoke,” Ren says. “He was magnificent, fierce and deadly!”

Luke blinks. “Your... _dragon_...slew Snoke,” he says slowly.

“Bit his head clean off,” Finn agrees, grinning. “I should think that would kill a Force-user as effectively as a lightsaber.”

“I hadn’t tried it before,” Luke admits. “But I can’t see why it _wouldn’t_ work. My thanks to Zereth, Ren. He has done a very good day’s work.” Ren preens.

“I will send someone to deal with the Stormtroopers,” General Leia says, shaking her head at her brother. “The ones who wish to be rehabilitated will be welcome on half a dozen planets - victory has many friends.”

“There may be some who wish to stay with us,” Rey points out. “We would be perfectly happy to keep them.”

Finn grins at her, grateful down to his bones.

“Fair enough,” General Leia concedes. “But any who do not wish to stay, we will have places for. And those who are still loyal to the First Order...well, we have a place for them too, a moon, where they can be kept safely without mistreatment.”

“Is the war over, then?” Rey asks wistfully.

“Not quite,” General Leia says with a soft smile. “There are still a fair number of First Order officers and officials who are...going to be reluctant to give up their dreams of empire.”

“My father, for one,” Hux murmurs.

“Precisely. But I have learned my lesson,” General Leia continues, suddenly stern. “They will be found. Their armies will be defeated, their manufactories closed, their crimes prosecuted. I will not let the empire rise a third time from the ashes of the First Order - though it takes me all the rest of my years, I will see this _finished_.”

Luke puts a hand on her shoulder, and Finn thinks that he does not want to get in the way of something General Leia Organa truly means to do - not now, and not ever. She’s not a Jedi like her brother, but according to Rey she has the Force, too, just uses it differently - and Finn suspects that if she wanted to she could bend the entire universe around her to see her will be done. But for tonight she is a small woman in a plain uniform, her hair braided up like a crown, smiling out of the comm unit at Finn.

“Worry about that later,” she says. “Well done, all of you. Well done.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately I will not be posting a chapter next Monday, August 15th; fic will resume the following week.


	8. Rise to Mate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter with the brief dragon-induced dubcon, just so everyone knows.

Finn marks the last day in the eighteen months of growth off on the enormous calendar on the dining room wall, and takes a deep breath.

“So, our dragons are adults now.”

“So they say,” Phasma agrees. “Samarth wishes it to be known that he has been very patient about the firestone, and would like to begin to learn to use it now.”

“Berith agrees,” Hux says, and Finn chuckles.

“Alright, you two and Ren and I will go down and experiment with firestone,” he says. “Rey, Poe - you might want to talk to Amaranth and Saeth about what, precisely, dragon mating consists of. Caith just gives me this _look_ and says ‘Not like human mating,’ which is _really_ helpful, I don’t think.”

Rey chuckles. “Will do,” she says. Poe is already dreamy-eyed, clearly speaking with his dragon, as he wanders out of the compound. Finn grins after him for a minute. They managed to put that look on his face _last_ night without any dragons at all.

*

Caith and Zereth and Samarth and Berith are all _very_ eager to learn to use firestone. Their riders are somewhat less eager after Zereth’s first misaimed belch leaves Ren’s hair somewhat shorter and rather more charred, though the blue dragon is _deeply_ apologetic, and all of the dragons are very careful to aim _away_ from their riders after that. Finn keeps Caith supplied with firestone and cheers when Caith manages to nail the target they’ve set up dead center, and tries not to laugh too hard at the picture normally-fastidious Hux makes when covered in soot.

Three days later, Chewbacca comes by with a small shipment of supplies from General Leia: clothing, a few small treats that they can’t get easily on this planet, and a pair of flamethrowers. Poe and Rey grin at each other. Finn blinks at his lovers and their unlikely weapons and can’t help wondering if he’s going to regret this moment as much as he suspects he is.

Rey modifies her flamethrower so that Amaranth can use it. Poe figures out how to rig a turbolaser under Saeth’s belly so she can fire it. Finn puts his head in his hands and sighs.

*

Finn and Rey are expecting, thanks to their dragons’ advice, to be driven half-mad with lust when their dragons rise to mate. They’ve even made plans to make sure that the whole encounter stays safe, plans which involve Poe as a sort of sane outside observer. Those plans are thrown out the airlock as soon as Amaranth raises her golden head from the third bloodless herd animal and bugles a challenge to her suitors and launches herself gleaming into the sky. (Finn, safe in his quarters with Rey, hears her through Caith’s ears, launches himself after her on Caith’s wings.) Because Poe shudders with sudden, unexpected and inescapable lust, comes staggering weak-kneed over to the bed and collapses onto it, kissing Finn and Rey with equal fervor, and they roll together over the double bunk, all three of them touching and kissing and rutting helplessly against each other, until high above them Caith bellows his triumph to the clouds and he and Amaranth, locked together, plummet joyously through the sky - and on the bed Finn rises above Rey and surges into her as Poe slides hurting-perfect into him and everything is lust and love and triumph and delight -

*

Finn wakes first, and leaves his sleeping lovers wrapped in blankets as he tugs on a pair of sleep pants and makes his slightly unsteady way out into the main room for a cup of hot caf and a few quiet minutes to think. So he is the one to see the aftermath of everyone _else’s_ reaction to the dragons’ lust.

Phasma emerges first - steps out of Kiara and Kylia’s room with a very self-satisfied air, gives Finn the smuggest smile he has ever seen and loads a tray with breakfast foods and goes sauntering back into the Knights’ bedroom like a conqueror. Finn blinks after her and tries _very hard_ not to let the mental images form. Broad-shouldered Phasma and lean, dark Kylia and curvy little Kiara...nope, nope, he’s not thinking about that. Not now, not ever.

The next person out into the main room is Hux, looking more disheveled than Finn has ever seen him: his normally immaculate hair is all out of place, and his clothing looks like it’s been thrown on in a great hurry. He has a very black look on his face, and stomps straight through the main room and out of the compound, muttering, “Never again. Never, never, _never_ again.”

...And then Ren comes out of their shared room looking more than a little green and goes darting into the common refresher, and Finn can hear him rinsing his mouth out and spitting with great fervor. O _kay_ then. Finn will not be asking.

Kitan and Elias come out of their room chatting, as they do most mornings. Finn blinks at them. They don’t look as though they’ve had a particularly eventful evening.

“You guys notice anything...weird last night?” he asks dubiously.

Elias shrugs and grins at him. “Nope,” he says cheerfully. “Oh, hey, did Caith fly Amaranth?”

“He did,” Finn says, and then realizes exactly what this must mean about Kitan and Elias’s normal interactions, and has to work hard not to choke on his caf. More images he didn’t need. Awesome.

Come to think of it, he’d better go check on the Stormtroopers in their temporary barracks down by the landing field. Maybe they were far enough away to be out of the field of dragon-induced lust, but then again, maybe they _weren’t_...Finn should probably apologize to them.

Poe emerges from their room a moment later and comes over to drape himself against Finn’s shoulder and steal his caf. “Hey, wingleader.”

“Hey,” Finn says, kissing his lover softly. “So, I was thinking maybe when your Saeth rises we should try to have the mating flight somewhere _else_.”

“Oh?”

“Otherwise Hux and Ren might kill me.”

Poe spits out his mouthful of caf and collapses against Finn’s shoulder in helpless, delighted laughter.

*

When Saeth starts getting twitchy, four days after Amaranth’s mating flight, Poe and Finn and Rey all head for the next set of hills with a tent, leaving Amaranth behind to sulk. Saeth rises with Caith hard on her tail and Poe and Finn and Rey tumble together on the bedroll and giggle and kiss and rut against each other. This time either the dragon-induced lust is less potent (possible, since green Saeth is far less overbearing than golden Amaranth) or the trio are more used to its effects, as no one actually loses time during the hours of play as they did under the influence of Amaranth’s mating flight, but it is still wise, they all agree, for them to do this far away from Hux and Ren and their still-simmering discomfort.

Finn should probably not find them as amusing as he does, but Hux is like a wet pittin, all offended haughtiness, and Ren is twitchier than normal, and really Finn would have thought that getting someone else into their respective beds would have calmed them down rather than otherwise.

On the other hand, self-contained as Hux is, he probably really disliked the feeling of losing control, and Ren is not selfless at the best of times, and might be expected to be rather the same in bed, and also probably got his control taken away from him a lot while he was training to be a Sith, and probably has bad memories about that. So honestly it’s probably not funny anyhow. Drat. Finn was having fun laughing at them.

*

Saeth and Amaranth spend a lot of time curled around each other while they wait for their eggs to form, and Rey and Poe and Finn spend a lot of time doting on them while Caith lounges on the hillside above them all and looks as smug as a dragon can.

When he’s not helping his lovers look after their dragons - or looking after his _own_ dragon, who is perfectly willing to spend hours being oiled and pampered until he gleams in the sunlight, hours Finn is absolutely willing to devote to him - Finn tries to make sure to spend time with each member of his wing, and also with the little camp of surrendered Stormtroopers who have become his responsibility.

It’s an interesting few months.

Hux is still twitchy and furious about the effects of the mating flight - Finn doesn’t bother to apologize for a lot of reasons, including the fact that he simply didn’t know what was going to happen and the fact that Hux would have been perfectly happy to be overcome with insatiable lust if his Berith had been lucky enough to fly Amaranth, even though Rey has, if possible, even less interest in Hux than Ren does. But Finn is starting to hope that he’ll be able to send Hux off with some other wing, full of people who maybe don’t find him as unpleasant as Finn does, at some point in the future.

Ren asks for a new room the day after the mating flight, and since Rey’s old room has been standing empty since Luke left, Finn assigns it to Ren. He’s got rather more sympathy for Ren, since the former Dark Force-user never did attempt to see if his blue could fly Rey’s gold, and moreover has been on his best behavior pretty much since the dragons hatched. Finn supposes, when he thinks about it, that Ren may have been teetering between Dark and Light for a while, and the dragon just made his decision for him. One more thing to thank the dragons for.

Phasma is...smug. Very smug. Her Samarth was very nearly fast enough to beat Caith in the mating flight - very nearly, but not quite - and she has become very close with the two female Knights of Ren since that night. Finn does not ask, and carefully pays no attention to the fact that Phasma emerges from the Knights’ room rather than her own on many mornings. Not his business so long as everyone’s happy - and from the little smiles on Kylia and Kiara’s faces, he thinks that he can pretty safely assume they are.

And down on the landing field, GZ-1800 has the surrendered Stormtroopers well under control. Under Phasma’s command and Samarth’s direction, they are building a huge round sandpit for the eventual eggs, with heating elements under it - apparently dragon eggs must be kept warm. Finn, remembering the warm sands of the beach where they found _their_ dragons’ eggs, thinks that the unknown gold dragon who laid the clutch must have been a very clever dragon indeed.

GZ-1800 is a clever, quiet woman who watches her troops with a careful eye and is more than a little wary of Finn and Phasma for several weeks. Finn can’t blame her. Still, he’s remarkably proud the day he goes down to check on the sandpit’s progress and GZ-1800 comes right over to him and grabs his arm, pulling him excitedly over to show him how one of her squadmates has been etching dragons into the wooden rails along the side of the pit. Finn dutifully admires them - they’re quite well done, actually - and goes back up the hill grinning at the knowledge that GZ-1800 has ceased to fear him.

The day she tells him she’s chosen to be named Gzitha, a name she came up with all on her own, is even better.

*

Two months after Saeth’s mating, Saeth and Amaranth heave themselves off the hillside and soar very slowly down to the sandpit, with Caith hovering nervously above them. The wing and the Knights of Ren and the surrendered Stormtroopers all gather to watch as each dragon lays a clutch of eggs: Saeth produces six, perfect ovals that she promptly and carefully buries, while Amaranth proudly lays eight, one of which, to everyone’s excitement, is a shining golden orb.

“Another gold,” Rey says to her dragon, beaming. “Well _done_ , dearest!”

 _The eggs are soft yet,_ Caith warns Finn. _Don’t touch them often. But they’ll need to be turned twice a day._

“Gotcha,” Finn assures his bronze. “Twice a day it is. How long will they take to harden - how long until they hatch?”

 _Four months until they hatch,_ Caith says. He drapes his head over Finn’s shoulder - Finn staggers a little - and radiates pride. _I have sired a gold, and eleven other eggs,_ he says smugly. _My flights were high and swift and magnificent._

“Yeah, you’re a complete stud,” Finn agrees, grinning. “Good job.”

Poe comes over to lean against Finn’s other side, and they both stand and watch while Rey very carefully buries the golden egg under Amaranth’s watchful gaze, while Saeth just stretches out on the heated sand and basks, one wing stretched protectively over her buried eggs.

“We done good,” Poe says after a while, softly, and Finn turns his head to kiss his lover.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “We really have.”


	9. The Hatching

At the General’s insistence, the hatching of the eggs is a huge event. Representatives of every planet and system in the Republic, and of every planet allied to the Resistance, are invited. Finn is, thankfully, _not_ in charge of finding food and housing for all of them; he’s having enough trouble keeping Rey and Poe on even keels (apparently a broody dragon results in a very edgy rider) and riding herd on the Stormtroopers and the Knights, all of whom are _very_ excited about the eggs. Gzitha has arranged for a guard to be placed around the sandpit day and night, of eager Stormtroopers with big sticks suitable for defending the eggs against - well, anything that happens to show up; Kylia and Kiara and Kitan and Elias can be found, most hours of the day, draped over the railing gazing wistfully at the eggs. Amaranth refuses to leave the sandpit except for brief flights and to kill and eat her thrice-weekly meals; Saeth is slightly less broody, but only slightly. Finn is therefore flying patrols with only three of his wing for backup - and that’s when he can convince Caith to leave his mates and eggs. As the eggs get harder, Caith gets more protective, until eventually Finn throws his hands in the air and tells Phasma to run the patrols and anything else that needs doing, because he is apparently going to be busy eggsitting.

Phasma laughs at him. Finn suspects he deserves it.

By the time the eggs are hard and ready to hatch, there must be nearly a thousand ships on the much-expanded landing field, each holding a delegation from one allied planet or other. Finn makes the rounds with the General when she asks him to, and honestly it’s a lot of fun to meet all the new and interesting people; when Caith can be coaxed away from the sandpit, he follows Finn and General Leia through the maze of ships, making friends with absurd ease as soon as the various delegates learn that he likes his eye-ridges scratched. Finn is vastly amused at the lengths his dragon will go to in order to convince some dubious guest or other to scratch him; adoring pleading eyes shouldn’t work on a forty-foot dragon but somehow they do.

“Tell me,” General Leia says over dinner one night - she and Luke are eating with the wing, and the Knights and Elias have politely gone to have dinner with the Stormtroopers so as to leave room at the table - “when the dragons hatch, will they choose riders, or will they just be adorable at everyone?”

 _They will choose; they must choose_ , Caith informs Finn.

“They’ll choose,” Finn says.

“Amaranth says if they don’t they’ll die,” Rey adds. Everyone in the wing flinches. “She’s very happy we brought so many people here, because that way they’ll have lots of choices.”

“Wait - but - they were just on a random beach!” Poe protests. “What if we hadn’t come along?”

“Amaranth says...it’s because she and Caith and Saeth are bonded. Bonded parents produce children who have to bond. But if we hadn’t been there, they’d be feral. I _think_ she means they wouldn’t be as smart, as...as much _people_ as they are now.”

“I see,” Luke says gravely. “So all of the clutches your dragons have must have humans to bond with. We must prepare for this.”

 _We can find those who would be suitable,_ Caith says. _There are many in the great gathering who might be right for my hatchlings. We will go looking, and bring candidates to our eggs, if this gathering is not repeated._

Finn echoes his dragon’s words, and Leia frowns thoughtfully. “Is being able to bond with a dragon a sign of Force sensitivity?”

Luke startles a little, blinking at his sister. Rey and Finn exchange a glance, and then Rey closes her eyes to concentrate better on her dragon’s response. “It... _might_ be,” she says after long moments. “It’s not really clear. She’s still only two years old, you know; she knows a lot, but it’s sort of hazy. Some sort of...genetic memory? But it doesn’t always map to the way we understand the galaxy. Anyway. To bond to a dragon you have to be able to talk to it, and not everyone can. I _think_ you have to be at least a little Force-sensitive to have that ability. But not, like, Jedi-level sensitive; just...a little more than normal, maybe.”

“Makes sense,” Finn agrees.

“Does this mean I could have a lightsaber?” Poe whispers in Finn’s ear, grinning when Finn blinks at him.

“Sure,” Finn murmurs back. “Green to match Saeth?”

Poe snickers, muffling it against Finn’s shoulder. “Do I look like Ren?”

“Not even a little bit,” Finn says, throwing an arm around Poe’s shoulders and leaning back comfortably. Across the table, Rey wrinkles her nose at him, and stretches a foot out under the table to rest on his knee.

“So who is likely to be eligible for a dragon, then?” Leia asks curiously. “Obviously the Knights are, being Force-users; and Luke and I, also.”

“What would I do with a dragon?” Luke protests.

“Adore it,” Finn suggests. “Kind of hard not to.” Phasma shrugs and nods, and even grim-faced Hux gets briefly dreamy-eyed. “Elias could bond to one,” Finn adds. “Caith said so months ago.”

 _Gzitha as well, and one of the other Stormtroopers,_ Caith says. _Maybe a hundred of the visitors. That should be enough for my hatchlings to have many good choices._

“I will warn the guests,” Leia says when Finn has relayed that. “We hardly want someone to be taken by surprise by a sudden baby dragon in their lap.”

“No, they’re quite heavy even when young,” Rey agrees blandly. Phasma snorts quietly. Finn thinks that she has changed the most beneficially of his Dark-Side wingmates: Ren is just as obsessive as he ever was, albeit about Zereth instead of destroying the galaxy, and Hux is just as ambitious as he ever was, albeit about becoming a power among the dragon-riders instead of Emperor of the universe, but Phasma has begun to become the sort of leader she was always meant to be, stern but good-natured, commanding and charismatic, with a dry sense of humor that Finn can appreciate.

“We’ll need a lot of meat, too,” Finn observes.

“Seating,” Hux puts in. “I think the Stormtroopers have begun building stands already.”

“They have,” Phasma confirms. “Though - if we’re going to have baby dragons looking for bondmates in the crowd -” her eyes go unfocused for a minute. “Samarth says he can find potential bondmates beforehand, and we can arrange for them to be near the eggs.”

 _Yes,_ Caith agrees.

“Good thought,” Finn says. “Alright then, for the next few days anyone who’s not otherwise occupied should go looking for potential bondmates. Give their names to the General or one of her aides - if that’s alright with you?”

“Certainly,” Leia says. “I have enough aides; assigning one to wrangle potential dragon bondmates isn’t going to be a problem. Though in the future, you may wish to find someone in your wing who can handle such logistical issues.”

Finn chuckles. “Well, now I’m _hoping_ Gzitha gets a dragon! She’d be a natural at this sort of thing.”

Poe laughs. “Just so long as it’s not _me_ ,” he says cheerfully. “You don’t want me near a spreadsheet.”

“No,” says Leia grimly. “No, we really, _really_ don’t.”

“...If I give you another glass of whiskey, will you tell us that story?” Rey asks Leia.

“I’d need the bottle,” Leia replies, grinning.

Poe sighs and knocks his head gently against Finn’s shoulder. “You mess up _one_ spreadsheet,” he mutters. Finn scruffs his fingers through his lover’s hair and grins.

*

A week later, they are all awoken by a beautiful, eerie sound from the bottom of the hill. Finn goes jogging out of the compound in nothing but his sleep pants to find Amaranth sitting back on her haunches, humming deep in her chest, the sound resonating across the sandpit and the landing field; all through the Stormtrooper encampment and the crowd of ships, people are emerging in their sleepwear to gawp at the enormous golden dragon.

 _They are hatching,_ Caith announces. And then Saeth sits up on her haunches, too, her crooning hum joining with Amaranth’s, and the other dragons come swooping down from their various perches to join the chorus. Finn swears and darts back inside to get changed, emerging rather faster than he thought he could with Poe and Rey beside him, and hurries down to the sandpit. Elias comes trotting up to them a few moments later with a platter of sandwiches, and Finn bolts one while he stares wide-eyed at the eggs, which are just barely beginning to rock.

“Sweet Force,” Rey whispers beside him, and Finn loops his arms around his lovers’ waists and lets them lean against him, bracing himself to take their weight.

Phasma and the Stormtroopers manage to herd the guests into their places - Finn would help, but he can’t actually move, pinned to his place beside the sandpit by wonder and delight - and the candidates, more than a hundred people in all, come hurrying over to ring the sandpit and stare with hope and apprehension at the rocking eggs. Leia and Luke and Chewbacca come over to stand with Finn and Poe and Rey; Rey tears her gaze from the eggs just long enough to shoot them a brief, grateful smile.

“Do we know what color any of them are going to be, besides the gold?” Leia asks curiously.

“No idea,” Finn says. “Caith says there’s no way to tell besides waiting. There’ll probably be a couple of the bigger colors in Amaranth’s clutch, and Saeth’s is going to be all blues and greens - at least that’s what Caith says - but beyond that, no idea.”

Poe nods. “Saeth says greens only throw greens and blues,” he agrees. “Odd system.”

“There are odder,” Luke observes calmly. “Some of them are even also color-coded.”

Finn snorts a laugh. “Big galaxy,” he says. “Full of strange things.”

One of the eggs starts to rock in earnest, and all eyes are drawn to it. A hush falls over the waiting crowd, broken only by the low, constant humming of the dragons. Finn finds himself holding his breath.

*

The first egg shatters with a _crack_ which echoes around the hills, and a tiny blue dragonet comes tumbling out. The crowd draws in a sharp breath, a hiss of astonished delight, and then the hatchling rights itself, scans the assembled candidates, and with a low pleading cry goes stumbling across the sand towards one Finn doesn’t recognize, a tall man with mottled skin, who staggers out onto the sand to meet it and falls to his knees, throwing his arms around the dragon’s neck with a shout of joy and wonder. “His name is Mahath!”

Finn hugs Poe a little harder: Mahath, firstborn of Saeth and Caith. In some sense, firstborn too of Finn and Poe. His heart is full of pride and delight.

After the first egg, three more shatter in rapid succession: another little blue, Ajath, chooses a short slender man who is very nearly smaller than his dragonet; an even tinier green, Erith - firstborn of Amaranth’s clutch - chooses Kaydel Ko Connix, who was the aide Leia assigned to keeping everything running smoothly; and brown Naboth chooses Kiara, who looks happier than Finn has ever seen her.

Then there is a pause, while the new riders usher their dragons away to where the Stormtroopers have set up a tent full of meat, and Finn can hear some of the guests placing bets on which egg will hatch next.

 _The gold,_ Caith tells Finn, sounding very smug. _She is ready now._

Sure enough, the golden egg splits in half with a resounding _snap_ , and the little gold dragonet steps imperiously onto the sand, scans the surrounding candidates, and then turns unerringly towards Finn’s little group; and beside Rey, Leia makes a hoarse, disbelieving sound, and then - clumsy for the first time Finn has seen - goes stumbling out onto the sand and gathers the dragonet into her arms. “Orlaith,” she says, sounding torn between joy and sorrow. “Orlaith, my very dear.”

Finn exchanges shocked looks with Rey and Poe; he knew Leia was Force-sensitive, but somehow he hadn’t actually expected her to bond with a dragon.

Mere seconds later, a little blue that Finn hadn’t even seen hatch, too caught up in watching Leia and her Orlaith bond, comes bulling up and demands Luke’s attention, and Luke, in wondering tones, says, “Jereth,” and gathers the dragonet up into his arms.

...Huh.

The noise of the crowd draws Finn’s attention away from Luke and Jereth, to see that another blue has quite determinedly made its way to one of the near-identical handmaidens of the Queen of Naboo, and the handmaiden is shooting apologetic looks over her shoulder at her Queen as she pets the little dragon and makes much of it. Ooh, that might be a slight diplomatic problem. But then again, perhaps not; a dragon might be a good sign of alliance instead. Finn is honestly not sure.

Another egg cracks open, and Finn turns his attention away from the handmaiden to the half-buried eggs and the treasure within them.

By the end of the day, all the eggs have hatched, and Poe is helping a dumbfounded Jess Pava feed her new little green Jacynth while Rey coaches a shocked Chewbacca through oiling brown Kirioth - who is apparently willing to talk to _anyone_ , not just his bondmate, so that’s going to be handy - and Finn himself is giving a short lecture on dragon care to a delighted Gzitha and her green Harith, equally delighted Elias with his green Parvath, the two unknown men - he _still_ hasn’t gotten their names - with their blues, Kitan with his blue Gath, and Kylia and her green Reth. The other new riders and their dragons are still busy with food and oil, and Finn watches the happy chaos with a broad grin.

 _They are strong hatchlings,_ Caith says smugly. _They have chosen well._

Finn quite agrees.


	10. Two Wings, No Waiting

“This is going to be...interesting,” Leia observes much later that night, looking at her Orlaith and Luke’s Jereth sleeping in a tangled heap on the heated sand. The other dragonets are sprawled over the sandpit, their proud parents curled around the outside, and their riders are mostly dozing in the stands, unwilling to go far from their new charges. “I cannot stay here, and yet I do not think I would be wise to try to recreate all the tricks you and your wing have come up with out of whole cloth - no sense not using the wisdom of those who have come before.”

“I can send some of my wing with you, if you like,” Finn offers. “And we can keep many of the dragonets here.”

“Who would you send?” Leia asks curiously, and Finn realizes that she is speaking to him not as General to subordinate, but as dragonrider to wingleader, and will abide by his decision. Well, shit. Finn thinks long and hard.

“You’d better take Phasma,” he says at last. “I think a wing needs a bronze. And - um.” He pauses and tries to think how best to phrase the next bit. “In about two years, _Orlaith_ will want a bronze.”

“Ah,” says Leia consideringly, and looks across the sandpit at Phasma, who is talking quietly to Gzitha over the slumbering form of little Harith. “Well. Alright.”

Finn grimaces. “I think you need at least one more...experienced dragon-rider, but...if I came, it would leave Amaranth without a bronze. Poe is...um. I’d prefer not to send Poe away. And I honestly don’t know how well you’d get along with Ren in your wing.”

“Badly, I suspect,” Leia says calmly.

“But that leaves Hux, and frankly I wouldn’t wish Hux on you, ma’am.”

Leia thinks about this for a moment, then shrugs. “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” she says philosophically. “At least if he’s under my direct command I can be sure I know what he’s up to.”

“He might well think that his Berith has a better chance with your Orlaith than he did with Amaranth,” Finn points out, “since you aren’t already in a...er...relationship.”

“The day he lays a hand on me I shall cut it off,” Princess Leia of Alderaan says serenely. “In the meantime, I think I can keep him sufficiently squashed.”

“Alright,” Finn says. “Then Phasma and Hux will go with you. And we’ll keep any of the little ones that you prefer.”

“I suspect you’d better keep all of the Knights,” Leia says easily. “And your Stormtrooper, too. And if you’ll help the little blues get their -” she grins. “Get their wings under them, before they go off to their respective planets, then I shall take my soldiers and my poor baffled brother with me. And Chewbacca may go where he pleases, I suppose.” She looks over at the Wookiee, who is sleeping curled around his dragonet. “I wonder if the _Falcon_ could be modified to carry dragons?”

“We could open one of the cargo holds to the inside,” Rey says speculatively, from where she’s been half-dozing on Finn’s shoulder. “Shouldn’t be that hard. And I think Amaranth could fit, though it’d be cramped. But I don’t want to think about trying to go _between_ planets.” She and Finn both shudder. “Imagine being trapped there for that long…”

“We should do that - modify the _Falcon_ ,” Finn says. “We’ll want to take the blues home at some point, and they’ll be small enough to fit at least two of them in the cargo hold - though I suppose it won’t fit much _cargo_ after that.”

Rey grins. “So much for the _Falcon’s_ epic smuggling career,” she says. “Now it’ll be the galaxy’s first dragon-carrier.”

“You know, I think Han might have liked that,” Leia says softly. “New things out of old.” Orlaith half-wakes and raises her head to trill at her rider, and Leia smiles down at the little dragon. “Yes, dear one, he’d have liked you too.”

Luke comes over to join them, with Poe and Jess trailing in his wake. Poe flops down across Rey and Finn’s laps, and Jess laughs at him and settles down leaning against the side of the sandpit while Luke sits beside his sister. “So this is awesome,” Jess says cheerfully. “Snap is going to be so kriffing jealous of me and Kare. We got the only thing better than an X-Wing!”

“Snap’s going to laugh his head off when you have to wake up at dawn every morning to feed the hungry little buggers,” Poe points out. “Force knows I adore Saeth, but I swear she ate her own weight in meat scraps most days when she was little.”

“Eh,” says Jess, shrugging. “Could be worse, could be an actual baby. At least Jacy can _talk_ , even if most of what she’s said so far is ‘hungry.’ _And_ she already knows how to find a private spot to shit.”

“...Okay, you’ve got me there,” Poe says after a moment. Finn muffles his chuckles in Rey’s hair.

“It’s honestly probably just as well we’ve been chosen,” Leia says thoughtfully. “The First Order is pretty much dead - oh, we’ll be hunting down remnants for years to come, but the main body is no longer a threat, and honestly hasn’t been since you lot killed their Supreme Leader. Without something to _do_ that isn’t hunt down tiny fragments of a dead Empire, I’d be...a little lost. Orlaith is...she’ll keep me from getting too caught up in anything else, I suspect.”

Luke chuckles dryly. “And Jereth will prevent me from going off to be a hermit again, I expect. Come to think of it, the dragons may well find me more students as the years go by. Perhaps Jedi with draconic companions will be less prone to falling to the Dark.”

“I think Ren is going to be setting up a school, too, even if he doesn’t really mean to,” Finn says. “He’s got the Knights, and if we get more hatchlings - I’m not sure how often the dragons will rise -”

 _Amaranth will rise once a year,_ Caith informs him. _Saeth three times._

“Right, so, at least three clutches a year, maybe four,” Finn says. “So we can send some to you and keep some here.”

“Do you think he should be trusted with teaching?” Luke inquires blandly.

“I think he’s pretty firmly Light-Side and the dragons will tell me if he starts going wrong,” Finn replies. “Or rather, they’ll tell Amaranth. That’s the real safety net, you know: none of them will disobey a queen.”

“Yup,” says Rey smugly. “Mine all mine.”

Luke laughs. “Well then,” he says. “That’s alright.”

*

Six months later, Finn looks down at the riders of his wing on their bright-shining dragons and raises an arm. “All dragons form on me,” he calls, and the dragonets fumble their way into the air, taking up their positions with varying levels of grace. Rey’s Amaranth gleams above them all, and Poe’s Saeth is flying circles around the dragonets, while Ren’s Zereth waits patiently for his students to master this new skill.

“Alright, wing,” Finn calls, “follow me!” And leads his wing - _his_ wing - Rey and Poe and Ren, Gzitha and Kitan and Elias and Kylia and Kiara - out on their first patrol.

 _They fly well,_ Caith observes as they lead the way through the air.

“Yeah,” Finn says. “They do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading! This is the end of Here There Be Dragons; next week Monday I'll have something else for you.

**Author's Note:**

> This will update Mondays! Please do come say hi to me at imaginarygolux.tumblr.com!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [soar](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8122864) by [Confection](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Confection/pseuds/Confection)




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